Citizen Science and Its Contribution to the Conservation of Sacramento Valley Red Foxes in California

<p>Red foxes found in the Sacramento Valley of California, referred to as SV red foxes throughout this thesis, were assumed to be of non-native ancestry until recent genetic testing confirmed their historical link to the area. The development of an effective conservation strategy for SV red foxes is currently underway, but was initially hindered by the lack of details regarding habitat requirements, occupancy patterns, and population sizes. In 2007, the University of California, Davis launched a fox reporting website for the public to document any fox sightings. Researchers actively pursued the public fox sighting reports from 2007-2009 and found 51 active red fox dens, 48 of which were native SV red fox dens, throughout the Sacramento Valley based on the locations provided in the reports. The objectives of my research are to answer the following questions: (1) What can the data provided in the previously obtained fox sighting reports reveal about the website trends and fox ecology? (2) What types of relationships occur between the public and the SV red fox research efforts, and how can the participants’ experience be improved to ensure long-term participation? (3) Can a recently developed presence-only SV habitat model be used as a filter for future incoming reports, and what are the relationships between the reports with a high probability of fox presence and its associate report components? In chapter one, I assess how effective the public sighting reports (n= 248) were in: assisting researchers with locating SV red fox dens, providing information about habitat preferences of the SV red foxes, and supplying insights of the website. The results showed that the distance from Yolo County, where the highest amount of SV red fox dens is located and where the initial study was conducted, can explain 38% of the variation in the quantity of reports collected from the website. In chapter two, I administered an online survey to the residents of the Sacramento Valley to gauge their outlook on SV red foxes and their opinions of the fox reporting website. The survey respondents included both previous website visitors and new website visitors. I summarized the responses (n= 310 total, n= 210 complete) and ran a series of statistical analyses to evaluate the social characteristics of the participants utilizing the website. Overall, the majority of participants responded positively to the website, declaring it interesting and helpful. However, there is a low rate of return visitors. The main users of the fox sighting website are older participants and/or participants with a higher level of education. In the third chapter of this research, I overlaid the fox sighting report locations onto the SV habitat model using ERSI® ArcMap v 10.0 and coded them for habitat suitability values. Analysing previously obtained fox sighting reports provided the necessary insight to define the criteria for the data filter. By implementing a habitat model filter at moderate habitat suitability levels, researchers can reduce the time it takes them to validate the public data received. However, a coinciding filter recording distribution frequency for report locations should also be implemented to compensate for dens located in low habitat suitability levels. Prior to this research, the data collected from the public had never been evaluated for purposes other than locating potential SV red foxes. By reviewing feedback from the participants, I was able to characterise the participants using the fox reporting website and assess their general SV red fox knowledge. The findings of my research also lead to insights about SV red fox ecology. However, the major finding in this research shows that the majority of local citizens participating in this study indicated awareness of SV red foxes nativity and endangerment. The methods used in my research can be applied to other citizen science projects, to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of collecting data.</p>

Citizen Science and Its Contribution to the Conservation of Sacramento Valley Red Foxes in California

<p>Red foxes found in the Sacramento Valley of California, referred to as SV red foxes throughout this thesis, were assumed to be of non-native ancestry until recent genetic testing confirmed their historical link to the area. The development of an effective conservation strategy for SV red foxes is currently underway, but was initially hindered by the lack of details regarding habitat requirements, occupancy patterns, and population sizes. In 2007, the University of California, Davis launched a fox reporting website for the public to document any fox sightings. Researchers actively pursued the public fox sighting reports from 2007-2009 and found 51 active red fox dens, 48 of which were native SV red fox dens, throughout the Sacramento Valley based on the locations provided in the reports. The objectives of my research are to answer the following questions: (1) What can the data provided in the previously obtained fox sighting reports reveal about the website trends and fox ecology? (2) What types of relationships occur between the public and the SV red fox research efforts, and how can the participants’ experience be improved to ensure long-term participation? (3) Can a recently developed presence-only SV habitat model be used as a filter for future incoming reports, and what are the relationships between the reports with a high probability of fox presence and its associate report components? In chapter one, I assess how effective the public sighting reports (n= 248) were in: assisting researchers with locating SV red fox dens, providing information about habitat preferences of the SV red foxes, and supplying insights of the website. The results showed that the distance from Yolo County, where the highest amount of SV red fox dens is located and where the initial study was conducted, can explain 38% of the variation in the quantity of reports collected from the website. In chapter two, I administered an online survey to the residents of the Sacramento Valley to gauge their outlook on SV red foxes and their opinions of the fox reporting website. The survey respondents included both previous website visitors and new website visitors. I summarized the responses (n= 310 total, n= 210 complete) and ran a series of statistical analyses to evaluate the social characteristics of the participants utilizing the website. Overall, the majority of participants responded positively to the website, declaring it interesting and helpful. However, there is a low rate of return visitors. The main users of the fox sighting website are older participants and/or participants with a higher level of education. In the third chapter of this research, I overlaid the fox sighting report locations onto the SV habitat model using ERSI® ArcMap v 10.0 and coded them for habitat suitability values. Analysing previously obtained fox sighting reports provided the necessary insight to define the criteria for the data filter. By implementing a habitat model filter at moderate habitat suitability levels, researchers can reduce the time it takes them to validate the public data received. However, a coinciding filter recording distribution frequency for report locations should also be implemented to compensate for dens located in low habitat suitability levels. Prior to this research, the data collected from the public had never been evaluated for purposes other than locating potential SV red foxes. By reviewing feedback from the participants, I was able to characterise the participants using the fox reporting website and assess their general SV red fox knowledge. The findings of my research also lead to insights about SV red fox ecology. However, the major finding in this research shows that the majority of local citizens participating in this study indicated awareness of SV red foxes nativity and endangerment. The methods used in my research can be applied to other citizen science projects, to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of collecting data.</p>

Development of an Urban Heat Mitigation Plan for the Greater Sacramento Valley, California, a Csa Koppen Climate Type

An urban atmospheric modeling study was undertaken with the goal of informing the development of a heat-mitigation plan for the greater Sacramento Valley, California. Realistic levels of mitigation measures were characterized and ranked in terms of their effectiveness in producing urban cooling under current conditions and future climate and land use. An urban heat-island index was computed for current and future climates based on each location’s time-varying upwind temperature reference points and its hourly temperatures per coincident wind direction. For instance, the UHII for the period 16–31 July 2015, for all-hours averaged temperature equivalent (i.e., °C · h hr−1), ranged from 1.5 to 4.7 °C across the urban areas in the region. The changes in local microclimates corresponding to future conditions were then quantified by applying a modified high-resolution urban meteorology model in dynamically downscaling a climate model along with future urbanization and land use change projections for each area. It was found that the effects of urbanization were of the same magnitude as that of the local climate change. Considering the urban areas in the region and the selected emissions scenarios, the all-hours temperature equivalent of the UHII (°C · h hr−1) increased by between 0.24 and 0.80 °C, representing an increase of between 17% and 13% of their respective values in the current climate. Locally, instantaneous (e.g., hourly) temperatures could increase by up to ~3 °C because of climate effects and up to ~5 °C because of both climate and urbanization changes. The efficacies of urban heat mitigation measures were ranked both at the county level and at local project scales. It was found that urban cooling measures could help decrease or offset exceedances in the National Weather Service heat index (NWS HI) above several warning thresholds and reduce the number of heatwave or excessive heat event days. For example, measures that combine increased albedo and urban forests can reduce the exceedances above NWS HI Danger level by between 50% and 100% and the exceedances above Extreme Caution level by between 18% and 36%. UHII offsets from each mitigation measure were quantified for two situations: (1) a scenario where a community implements cooling measures and no other nearby communities take any action and (2) a scenario where both the community and its upwind neighbors implement cooling measures. In this second situation, the community benefits from cooler air transported from upwind areas in addition to the local cooling resulting from implementation of its own heat mitigation strategies. The modeling of future climates showed that except for a number of instances, the ranking of measures in each respective urban area remains unchanged into the future.

Characterizing strain between rigid crustal blocks in the southern Cascadia forearc: Quaternary faults and folds of the northern Sacramento Valley, California

Topographic profiles across late Quaternary surfaces in the northern Sacramento Valley (California, USA) show offset and progressive folding on series of active east- and northeast—trending faults and folds. Optically stimulated luminescence ages on deposits draping a warped late Pleistocene river terrace yielded differential incision rates along the Sacramento River and indicate tectonic uplift equal to 0.2 ± 0.1 and 0.6 ± 0.2 mm/yr above the anticline of the Inks Creek fold system and Red Bluff fault, respectively. Uplift rates correspond to a total of 1.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr of north-directed crustal shortening, accounting for all of the geodetically observed contractional strain in the northern Sacramento Valley, but only part of the far-field contraction between the Sierra Nevada–Great Valley and Oregon Coast blocks. These structures define the southern limit of the transpressional transition between the two blocks.

Supplemental Material: Characterizing strain between rigid crustal blocks in the southern Cascadia forearc: Quaternary faults and folds of the northern Sacramento Valley, California

Supplemental figures and information about datasets and methods used for mapping and terrace profiling, and OSL dating methods, results, and discussion.<br>

Supplemental Material: Characterizing strain between rigid crustal blocks in the southern Cascadia forearc: Quaternary faults and folds of the northern Sacramento Valley, California

Supplemental figures and information about datasets and methods used for mapping and terrace profiling, and OSL dating methods, results, and discussion.<br>

“An entire past comes to dwell in a new house”: Topophilia and Jeremiad in Joan Didion’s Run River

In this paper, I will analyse Joan Didion’s poetics of praise and mourning in her first published novel, Run River, understanding the Western landscape she presents in it as an instance of Gaston Bachelard’s idea of the childhood home as a felicitous, eulogised space. I will argue that Didion’s depiction of the Sacramento Valley and the struggle of the families inhabiting it to accept the changing face of the landscape results in a jeremiad narrative of the West as paradise lost. Reflecting on the limitations both of Bachelard’s discussion of the childhood home and of the West as a mythographic space, I will conclude by assessing Didion’s topophilia and her ambiguous stance as a Western writer.

A preliminary range-wide distribution model for the sacramento valley red fox

© 2017, Allen Press. All rights reserved. The Sacramento Valley red fox Vulpes vulpes patwin of California is a newly named subspecies recently found to be distinct both from other native red foxes and nearby introduced populations. The Sacramento Valley red fox experienced a historical demographic bottleneck resulting in a critically small genetic effective population size, causing concern over its current status and management requirements, yet little is known about its contemporary abundance, demographic trajectory, or habitat use. The hot, arid Sacramento Valley contrasts starkly in climate and physiography with the boreal habitats of other indigenous red foxes in western North America, indicating the need to obtain information specifically on the habitat requirements of this subspecies. A 3-y effort to locate reproductive den sites throughout the Sacramento Valley resulted in 42 independent dens, which we used to obtain preliminary information on habitat use and to develop a distribution model for this subspecies, and 28 Sacramento Valley red foxes killed by vehicles, which we used as independent data to test the models. Foxes were present significantly more than expected in grasslands and less than expected in wetlands and flooded agriculture and also tended to occur in proximity to human development, potentially as refuges from coyotes Canis latrans. We used Maxent to build predictive models. The best model, which incorporated vegetation/land-use classes and proximity to human development, identified 24% of the study area as predicted-presence habitat, which contained 76% of the den sites used to construct the model and 89% of independent locations used to test the model. Our model greatly narrowed the area over which foxes are predicted to occur and will facilitate future surveys to assess occupancy and ultimately abundance and population trends.