Welcome to Earth to Santa Cruz, or ESC. I will use this blog to publish notes and news about the various interplays and dramas unfolding in the natural parts of the UC Santa Cruz campus. As everyone knows, we have a very special campus (probably the most beautiful in the world) and we have every reason to celebrate it.
Campus in flux
The campus, which includes developed areas, protected swaths of reserve land, and places open to development, is changing as we speak. While the treasured redwoods are busy regrowing to their pre-clear cut glory, it seems fair to say that the creatures of the redwood forest will have to constantly adapt to a regenerating forest. We can speculate that the dynamic of the deer population has been changing since several other mega fauna were wiped out in Santa Cruz in the past couple centuries. The knobcone pines are falling victims to suppression of the fire they need to reproduce1, and what with all the microbes, fungi, invertebrates, reptiles, and other living things that depend on the fast changing elements of the local ecosystems, it's safe to say that we're bearing witness to an evolving natural world. What a great opportunity, right? We can observe nature as she undergoes a rapid transformation, and I'd like to start by taking inventory of one of my favorite plants - the coast redwood tree.
Sources
1. Haff, Tonya M., Martha T. Brown, and W. Breck. Tyler. "Plants." The Natural History of the UC Santa Cruz Campus. Santa Cruz: Environmental Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2008. 125-26. Print.
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