In most temperate coniferous forests, the vast majority of vascular plant species richness can be found in the understory layer. While the large-scale conversion of forests to plantations has made it increasingly important to understand how understory . . .

Russian Peak, at an elevation of 8200 feet, is situ­ated in the Salmon Mountains, a north-south trending range centrally located within the Klamath Region of northwest­ern California. The Salmon Mountains are drained by the Scott River on the east and . . .

Harbor seals have been listed as a species likely to benefit from new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in California as part of the Marine Life Protection Act. Whereas seals may experience direct and indirect effects from these MPAs as a whole, the impac . . .

Five species of western gooseberries (Ribes: Grossulariaceae) hybridize to varying degrees in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon. Pollinator surveys and hand-pollination experiments were conducted to identify reproductive barriers between . . .

Disturbances such as wildfire play a major role in the diversity, structure, and composition of plant communities, however, little is known about the differential impacts of fire across landscapes that vary in characteristics such as soil nutrients an . . .

Spotted fever group (SFG) rickettsiae have been shown to cause many human and animal diseases. SRG rickettsial phylotypes G021 and G022 were recently detected in Ixodes pacificus ticks from Napa and California using quantitative real time polymerase c . . .

The dominant plant in Humboldt Bay salt marshes is Spartina densiflora, a species of cordgrass apparently introduced from South America. At several salt marshes and restoration sites around Humboldt Bay, distribution of this plant has increased signif . . .

Numerous studies have analyzed the effect of habitat fragmentation on plant pollinators and herbivores. These studies describe the decrease in pollinator services and seed set in small and isolated patches due to pollinator preference for large, conti . . .

The genus Ribes displays extensive floral diversity. The pollinator shift model suggests that such diversity is an outcome of species shifting to specialize on new pollinators. To test this model, I surveyed the flower visitors of 14 Ribes species at . . .