During this visit to the reserve I plan to return UV blocking shelters borrowed from the Jennifer King lab at UCSB. Jennifer has a new graduate student who will be studying the effects of UV photodegradation on a wide range of native and invasive plants - very little is known about how invasion by exotic plants might increase the susceptibility of ecosystems to UV degradation. This has important ramifications for how decomposition cycles may become decoupled from production cycles, especially given projections for changing precipitation regimes. These shelters were originally borrowed from Sedgwick in summer 2014 and will be returned to the invaded grassland where they were previously used by King lab PhD student Yang Lin (along Figueroa Creek Road, I think just before the junction with Pine Needle Valley Trail). The shelters are small (~ 70(l) x 50(w) x 30(h) cm) and total 40 in number.

Approved