Dataloggers deployed to new site!

A few years ago, we'd done surveys looking for seedlings and saplings at a site near Big Sur, near the southernmost limits of coast redwood range. One of the primary goals of crowdfunding this project was to increase the number of our dataloggers so that we could monitor microclimate variables at this site. (The site is a UC Reserve called Landels Hill- Big Creek, about 15 miles south of the town of Big Sur.).

This is one of the sites where our preliminary work had shown, several years ago, that while there are mature redwoods at the site, there are very few young ones. If we can characterize and model what the microclimates are like here, in small sites that seem suitable for seedling growth but lack seedlings, and contrast these sites with microclimates in places that do have seedlings, we may be able to better understand what specific factors are limiting seedling survival here.

So, this past week, we (8 members of the team) made a long day trip down to the site, did some preliminary surveying, and installed 5 dataloggers along an elevational transect on the north-facing slope within a redwood-containing canyon along a creek. For all but two of us, this was a first time visit to the site.

 

Team heading up the Whale Point trail

 

Radshields/dataloggers ready to be deployed

 

Lowest elevation datalogger in its new home for the summer-fall

 

Overhead canopy cover at the microsite

 

Microsite data photo

 

Time for waterfalls!