Sequoia and Kings Canyon Field Station Active
The Sequoia and Kings Canyon Field Station is home to research programs that focus on wildfire patterns in Southern California, and the effects of drought on Sierra Nevada forests. Select the "Science" tab for a more comprehensive summary.
The Sierra Nevada Range forms the backbone of California, supplying the nation's most populous state with irreplaceable resources such as water, timber, and recreational opportunities. The southern portion of this range climbs from near sea level to 14,495 feet elevation in less than 60 miles, supporting an extraordinary diversity of plants and wildlife.
The Sequoia and Kings Canyon Field Station was established in 1968 to provide client agencies scientific information for sound management of national parks and other federal lands in the Sierra Nevada. The field station's research currently focuses on four stressors identified by the congressionally mandated Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project as being particularly threatening to Sierra Nevada ecosystems: loss of natural fire regimes, exotic species invasion, air pollution, and human-induced increase in global temperatures.
To address these issues, the Sequoia and Kings Canyon Field Station has formed strong research partnerships with the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, University of California, and many other universities. Current research includes studies of historical landscape change and fire regimes, effects of stressors on forest ecosystems, invasive plant response to disturbance, and the effects of prescribed fire on stream chemistry and hydrology.
Explore specific projects conducted at the Sequoia and Kings Canyon Field Station:
Adaptations to Rapid Change
Improving Understanding of Forest and Carbon Dynamics
Detection, Attribution, and Interpretation of Forest Changes
- Overview
The Sequoia and Kings Canyon Field Station is home to research programs that focus on wildfire patterns in Southern California, and the effects of drought on Sierra Nevada forests. Select the "Science" tab for a more comprehensive summary.
The Sierra Nevada Range forms the backbone of California, supplying the nation's most populous state with irreplaceable resources such as water, timber, and recreational opportunities. The southern portion of this range climbs from near sea level to 14,495 feet elevation in less than 60 miles, supporting an extraordinary diversity of plants and wildlife.
The Sequoia and Kings Canyon Field Station was established in 1968 to provide client agencies scientific information for sound management of national parks and other federal lands in the Sierra Nevada. The field station's research currently focuses on four stressors identified by the congressionally mandated Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project as being particularly threatening to Sierra Nevada ecosystems: loss of natural fire regimes, exotic species invasion, air pollution, and human-induced increase in global temperatures.
To address these issues, the Sequoia and Kings Canyon Field Station has formed strong research partnerships with the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, University of California, and many other universities. Current research includes studies of historical landscape change and fire regimes, effects of stressors on forest ecosystems, invasive plant response to disturbance, and the effects of prescribed fire on stream chemistry and hydrology.
- Science
Explore specific projects conducted at the Sequoia and Kings Canyon Field Station:
Adaptations to Rapid Change
Management decisions are made at the intersection of facts and values, and WERC's role is to assist decision-makers by bringing the best available science to the table. Dr. Nathan Stephenson seeks to help managers and policy makers reassess their missions in light of rapid and unprecedented changes, develop broad concepts relevant to adapting to such changes, and provide hands-on assistance during...Improving Understanding of Forest and Carbon Dynamics
The community's ability to understand and predict changes in forests and their feedbacks to the global carbon cycle increasingly relies on models spanning several scales of biological organization – from tree leaves to entire forested landscapes. Yet many model assumptions about key processes – such as tree growth and mortality – require long-term data that are sometimes difficult and time...Detection, Attribution, and Interpretation of Forest Changes
Dr. Nathan Stephenson and colleagues seek to determine what changes are occurring in forests, why they are occurring, and what they mean. For example, they have documented a long-term, apparently climatically-induced increase of tree mortality rates in otherwise undisturbed old forests across the western U.S., implying that these forests could become net sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide.