Category: Research
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Creekside Science Tackles Monarch Butterfly Overwintering Habitat Across California
The Western monarch butterfly population that overwinters in California is in a state of collapse from a panoply of causes, including pesticide use, climate change, land use-change, and deterioration of the overwintering sites along the coast. Stu has been working with overwintering monarchs since 1990, using hemispherical (fisheye) photography to quantify canopy structure and map…
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San Bruno Mountain Lupine Seeding Year 2
In 2018 Creekside Science was awarded a Disney Butterfly Conservation Initiative grant for work with the federally endangered Mission blue butterfly (MBB). This grant covers work with MBB habitat, with a focus on restoration of the butterfly’s host lupine species. In December 2019 Creekside Science staff and Kirra Swenerton (of Root Wisdom) installed 10 blocks…
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Think Big, Connect More
In November 2019, more than 125 members of the conservation community gathered at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for the official launch of the Bay Area Conservation Lands Network 2.0 Science Expansion. CLN 2.0 inventories, synthesizes, and projects forward the impressive collective efforts that have made the Bay Area a world leader in conservation,…
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The Bay Checkerspot Butterfly Returns to San Bruno Mountain!
The federally threatened Bay checkerspot butterfly was extirpated from San Bruno Mountain in the mid 1980s. On March 2 and 3 2017, Creekside Science biologists collected 3630 caterpillars from Coyote Ridge in San Jose and released them on the main ridge of San Bruno Mountain. The larvae immediately started munching English plantain, a non-native used by…
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Creekside Science Quino checkerspot work
Creekside Science is working in collaboration with numerous agencies and institutions, including the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), San Diego National Wildlife Refuge, San Diego Zoo, San Diego State University and Earth Discovery Institute, on reversing the decline of the critically endangered Quino checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha quino) in San Diego County. Dr. Weiss…
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Fine-scale modeling of bristlecone pine treeline position in the Great Basin, USA
A multi-year collaboration between Western Washington University (Andrew Bunn, Jamis Bruening, Tyler Tran), The Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at University of Arizona (Matthew Salzer) and Creekside Science (Stu Weiss, Jimmy Quenelle) culminates with the publication of this paper! bruening_2017_environ-_res-_lett-_12_014008 It was an honor to work with this dedicated team over time and over diverse terrain,…
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LAG Grant Award for Monitoring Nitrogen Deposition in Santa Clara County
Creekside Science, in collaboration with the Santa Clara Valley Habitat Agency, has been awarded a Natural Community Conservation Planning (NCCP) Local Assistant Grant for researching nitrogen deposition trends in the HCP area of Santa Clara County. Added nitrogen drives annual grass invasions on serpentine soils and threatens many of the covered species, especially the Bay…
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Hunting the Tiburon Paintbrush
Creekside staff has teamed up with researchers in order to help us learn more about the endangered Tiburon Paintbrush (Castilleja affinis ssp. neglecta). Laney Widener of the Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden has been traveling through California collecting samples and updating the distribution of this plant (and a number of Castilleja species).
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Where the wind blows
Creekside Science has been working with the Presidio Trust on a number of projects over the years. One current project will provide initial calibration of a local wind model, tied to existing wind readings on the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. The model will estimate winds at particular sites in the Presidio based on…
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