Terrestrial and Aquatic Invertebrates

Working within the structure of the One Tamalpais Collaborative, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy received $400,000 in funding through the California Wildlife Conservation Board’s pollinator rescue program to invest in protection of monarch butterflies in Marin County.

Have you ever wondered what an environment looked like in the past? Or how much human-caused change has altered an area? So have scientists at Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the US Geological Survey! Sediment cores can act like windows into the past, containing information like what animals lived there and what their surroundings were like. In fall 2020, scientists collected about 21 four-inch sediment cores from throughout Rodeo Lagoon.

Leaf-cutter ants may get all the nature documentary attention, but have you ever seen a leaf-cutter bee? They are no less amazing, tidily snipping pieces of leaves or petals and using them, sometimes along with tree resin, to build their uniquely shaped burrows. The Bay Area is home to an endemic leaf-cutter bee species—the San Francisco leaf-cutter bee. But no one had recorded this special status species since 1980—until now!

Sweeney Ridge was once one of the few remaining places to support endangered Mission blue butterflies on the San Francisco Peninsula. But the quarter-sized, iridescent insects disappeared from the site after a fungal outbreak decimated their host plants in the late 1980’s. Recently, a multi-agency collaborative formed to bring mission blues back to Sweeney Ridge. Thanks to its efforts, Mission blue butterflies are now flying there again for the first time in 35 years!

Have you heard the buzz? One Tam’s Tamalpais Bee Lab is in the midst of an exciting new phase, transitioning from inventory to targeted monitoring. The bee lab is a One Tam community science effort understand more about Mount Tamalpais' local wild bees.

It's totally normal for the lower section of Olema Creek in Point Reyes National Seashore to turn into large, isolated pools of water in the summer. The pools persist throughout the dry season, providing refuge for aquatic life. What isn't normal is fewer, quickly shrinking pools. But this September, that's what we found. We also discovered that some of the pools contained high densities of the park's smallest aquatic species of concern: the California freshwater shrimp.

Last fall, as the coho and steelhead monitoring crew was counting juvenile fish in Olema Creek, they spotted a familiar species in an unexpected place. Normally, they see tiny, translucent, California freshwater shrimp in the lower two miles of the creek. Now, crewmembers were seeing them almost a half mile farther upstream than their previously recorded upstream extent.

Mission blue butterflies are back to their old flying grounds. In a fight to restore the federally endangered butterfly’s resilience, National Park Service staff and partners have been working to boost populations that shrunk or vanished through the decades, like that at Sweeney Ridge.

This summer, the Natural Resources Management team at John Muir National Historic Site began two new exciting wildlife monitoring projects involving beloved native pollinators: monarch butterflies and bumble bees. Interns began milkweed and blooming plant surveys in April and monitoring for monarch eggs and larvae in June. They also began collecting data in June for the California Bumble Bee Atlas, a new community science effort to conserve native bumble bees.

Black abalone are endangered marine snails. When I told people that I was making a podcast about them, I was often met with the question, “Why black abalone?” If you are curious too, you’re in the right place. I hope to elucidate why black abalone represent an interesting case study in delicate balances: between marine and terrestrial, ancient and Anthropocene, and vulnerability and resiliency in the context of roles they play in their communities and in ours.