For many years, selective thinning has been considered a potential tool for accelerating old-growth forest characteristics in the dense stands of young trees that typically cover harvested redwood lands. Now, research by the US Forest Service has confirmed the wisdom of thinning, or removing select trees to reduce competition in a stand. Learn more about this research.
Recent League-funded research by Richard Dodd, an Environmental Science Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, confirms that northern groves (north of the Kings River drainage) have lower genetic diversity than central and southern groves. This could have profound consequences for long-term conservation strategies for the species, especially considering the changing global climate.
Genetic profiles of specific coast redwood strains mean some trees could demonstrate greater resilience in certain types of climatic conditions than others.
The League funded an ambitious study to learn more about white-footed voles. Unfortunately, they’re almost impossible to find in the luxuriant understory of the typical coastal redwood forest. In response, researchers have released the hounds.
More than $200,000 in research grants from Save the Redwoods League in 2013 and 2014 will fund projects that will contribute to scientific knowledge of coast redwood and giant sequoia forests. This research can help us answer big questions that will protect the health of people, wildlife and redwood forests.
Both as shrubs and mid-sized trees, tanoaks are an important element in Central California’s coast redwood forests. They add structural diversity and, through their acorns, abundant food for wildlife. Afflicted by the disease “sudden oak death” (SOD), they may soon be adding fuel to coastal fires. Learn more about this research.
Humboldt State University fisheries biologist Darren Ward was concerned, but not surprised, when New Zealand mud snails showed up in Redwood National Park in 2009. With help from a grant from Save the Redwoods League, Ward and a colleague at the US Geological Survey, Adam Sepulveda, began searching to see if they were moving upstream. Learn more about this research.
Though common in chaparral, manzanitas can also eke out a living on the edges of coast redwood forests. A recent study funded by Save the Redwoods League explored the differences between coastal versions of this sturdy red-barked shrub and their more sun-loving cousins.
In 2010, funded by Save the Redwoods League and the National Science Foundation, Professor Jarmila Pittermann and Burns began a study comparing the leaves of evergreen and deciduous ferns. Interested in their response to drought, they chose midsummer, just before the deciduous ferns would shed their leaves, in the drier southern part of coast redwoods’ range (in the Santa Cruz Mountains and Big Sur). They expected that evergreen leaves, which are thicker, would show fewer signs of water stress.
More than 30 years ago, giant sequoia seeds were collected in 23 groves representing the species’ range from north to south in the Sierra Nevada. They were propagated and planted on US Forest Service land 20 miles east of Auburn, California, that was hotter, drier, lower in elevation and farther north than any of their original homes. This experiment, the legacy of William J. Libby, UC Berkeley emeritus professor and Save the Redwoods League board member, has been studied and carefully maintained ever since.
Giant sequoias can live for thousands of years, but they sometimes have difficulty getting started. Unlike coast redwoods, giant sequoias rarely sprout from their bases. Their reproductive future lies in their tiny (0.2-inch-long) seeds, which need just the right combination of soil, sun and moisture to survive.
Martens are agile, 2-foot-long members of the weasel family. They need ancient forests—and used to thrive in the coast redwoods of California. Today the Humboldt marten, the coastal subspecies of the Pacific marten in California, has vanished from more than 95 percent of its former range. A single population of about 100 remains on the coastal edge of the Six Rivers National Forest, roughly between Crescent City and Arcata. Learn more about this research.
In the past 70 to 80 years, most fires in California’s coast redwood forests were prevented or suppressed. But in 2008, more than 2,000 fires ignited forests in Northern and Central California during a single summertime lightning storm. Overwhelmed by conflagrations in drier areas, firefighters allowed many of fires in coast redwood forests to burn.
Being dwarfed by Earth’s most massive tree, the giant sequoia (aka “Sierra redwood”), fills you with wonder. It’s hard to believe that a living thing can be so enormous and old. It may be alarming to see these forests on fire, but research funded by your gifts shows that disturbances such as these actually are good for giant sequoias. Learn more about this research.
A US Forest Service ecologist, Weller decided to check out his own backyard: the redwood forests of Northwest California. He not only found bat activity in winter, but also important clues about the bats’ migrations. When Weller had surveyed a common species called the silver-haired bat in summer, he’d found almost all males. In the winter, however, he began to catch females right away. So he asked Save the Redwoods League to fund research to figure out what was going on. Learn more about this research.
Funded by a grant from Save the Redwoods League, entomologist Peter H. Kerr recently found two new species of fungus gnats near the base of some of the park’s giant sequoias. Learn more about this research.
For more than half a century, the Mill Creek region in Northern California produced lumber. After clear-cutting, too many seeds were planted, producing a forest in which too many young trees competed for light, water and other resources. Now, thanks to Save the Redwoods League, Mill Creek is protected as part of Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park and is becoming a laboratory for redwood forest restoration. Learn more about this research.
The range of the black salamander (Aneides flavipunctatus) almost perfectly overlaps with the historic range of redwoods along the Central and Northern California coast. While most animals live on the Earth’s surface, this well-hidden amphibian travels mostly up and down in the rocks and soil. Its vertical approach to life comes in handy when the weather is hot or dry: the salamander moves deeper into the Earth until conditions are more to its liking. Learn more about this research.
Tanoak (Notholithocarpus densiflorus) grows in coastal forests in Oregon and California. Compared with the majestic redwood, it’s scruffy and small. But this humble hardwood plays an important ecological role in the redwood forest ecosystem. Its medium-height trees add a second canopy to the complex architecture of an old-growth redwood forest, creating more niches for diverse species. And its nutritious acorns feed bear, deer, rodents and birds.
Virtually all redwood forests have (or once had) streams in which salmon run and spawn. But after 150 years of damming, water diversion, logging and development, most of these fish species face extinction. Learn more about this research.
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