Recovery of western black-legged tick and vertebrate populations after a destructive wildfire in an intensively-studied woodland in northern California.

Despite increasing severity and frequency of wildfires, knowledge about how fire impacts the ecology of tick-borne pathogens is limited. In 2018, the River Fire burned a forest in the far-western U.S.

Anthropogenic stressors and changes in the Clear Lake ecosystem as recorded in sediment cores.

Sediment cores were collected to investigate multiple stresses on Clear Lake, California, USA, through the period of European occupation to the present day. Earlier workers suggested the hypothesis that the use of mechanized earthmoving equipment, starting in the 1920s and 1930s, was responsible for erosion, mercury (Hg) contamination, and habitat loss stresses. Cores (approximately 2.

Seasonal variations in plant species effects on soil N and P dynamics.

It is well established that plant species influence ecosystem processes, but we have little ability to predict which vegetation changes will alter ecosystems, or how the effects of a given species might vary seasonally. We established monocultures of eight plant species in a California grassland in order to determine the plant traits that account for species impacts on nitrogen and phosphorus cycling. Plant species differed in their effects on net N mineralization and nitrification rates, and the patterns of species differences varied seasonally.