History: Blue Oak Ranch Reserve (BORR), established in December 2007, is the newest addition to the University of California Natural Reserve System. In early 2004, the Blue Oak Trust approached the University with a proposal to donate land to the Natural Reserve System. A four-campus review was completed in early 2005, with a strong recommendation by the committee for acceptance of the property into the NRS. After three years of negotiations with the UC Natural Reserve System System-wide Office, the Blue Oak Ranch Trust transferred ownership of the 3,260 acre Ranch to the Regents of the University of California, along with a grant of $3M towards startup operations and an operating endowment. Two full-time academic professional staff work on site.
Project plan: This award to UC-Berkeley is for equipment to deploy a new generation of ecological sensing system, the Very Large Ecological Array (VeLEA) using commercial wireless sensor network technology designed for general purpose environmental sensing. VeLEA will function as a scalable, configurable distributed wireless (WiFi) communication backbone to allow investigators and educators at BORR to deploy off-the-shelf environmental sensors, network cameras, custom sensors and specialized instruments at any location or habitat within BORR. The science applications for such a modular general purpose array of sensors are multifaceted. VeLEA will provide a multi-scale representation of the temporal and spatial variability of micro-meteorological parameters across the diverse topographic and ecological communities at BORR, of relevance to numerous proposed and ongoing research projects. Sensors distributed in hundreds of locations will monitor soil profiles for moisture and temperature gradients, near ground sensors will document temporal changes in temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, wind speed and solar radiation. Aquatic sensors will track surface and subsurface flows, concentrations and gradients of moisture across micro and macro watersheds. Studies of the responses of species and ecosystems to regional and microclimatic variability will benefit from the VeLEA observatory data streams. Sensor network hardware can integrate sap flow sensing to track transpiration and water flux from rainfall, through soils and into trees and will be of value to studies of plant physiology.
The Blue Oak Ranch oak woodland and grassland habitats represent threatened California ecosystems that are under pressure from development, invasive species encroachment, and climate change. VeLEA cyberinfrastructure will be of use to many users, for ecological research, instruction and public education. VeLEA will directly benefit public understanding of climate change effects through outreach on their website and at the local science and technology museums in the Silicon Valley area. The PIs are establishing collaborations with private non-profit K-12 science education outreach organizations and with the staff at local science and technology museums in the San Jose area.
