Merced Vernal Pools join Natural Reserve System

>> UC Merced: Natural Reserve earns regents' approval

By Kathleen Wong

Rolling grasslands that harbor rare vernal pool ecosystems next door to UC Merced have joined the UC Natural Reserve System. The 6,561-acre Merced Vernal Pools and Grassland Reserve will enable students and faculty to study fairy shrimp, endemic plants and some of North America's oldest soils just minutes from campus. Most of California's original vernal pool habitats have been destroyed, making the new reserve a critical refuge for rare and endangered plants and animals.

"It's like taking a national monument and bumping it up to a national park," says Sam Traina, UC Merced vice chancellor of research, of the reserve's new designation. "Having it as part of the UC Natural Reserve System increases its visibility, opening it up to students and faculty from all over the world, and it anchors our commitment to the land and its conservation."

"This new reserve protects one of the most extensive vernal pool landscapes remaining in the state," says Peggy Fiedler, director of the UC Natural Reserve System. "We're deeply pleased and proud to help make this rare place available to scientists, artists, students, and classes over the long term."

The Merced Vernal Pools and Grassland Reserve is the 39th reserve in the system, a network of protected areas throughout California providing undisturbed environments for research, education, and public service. The NRS includes more than 750,000 acres, making it the largest university-administered reserve system in the world. UC Merced will perform day-to-day management of the reserve, while the NRS systemwide office will administer it via NRS guidelines. The reserve will be funded in perpetuity by UC Merced and a generous endowment from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

"If you look at the key reasons for having the reserve-education, research, and our requirement to be good stewards of the land-being part of the NRS will help us do a better job of all three," says reserve director Christopher Swarth. "It's a feather in the cap for UC Merced."

The reserve's namesake pools form due to a combination of local soils and California's Mediterranean climate. Winter and spring rains deliver the area's yearly allotment of moisture. But instead of percolating into the earth, a layer of impervious hardpan near the soil surface causes water to pond. Inundation awakens a flurry of life in the pools. Many-legged fairy, tadpole, and clam shrimps hatch. California tiger salamanders emerge from upland burrows and trek to the pools to mate and lay eggs. As the days grow warmer, and the water begins to evaporate, native wildflowers bloom in concentric rings of yellow, white, and blue around pool edges. Young salamanders lose their gills, and leave their natal pools to find a welcoming nearby ground squirrel burrow. The shrimps lay eggs containing embryos in suspended animation. By June, the pools are little more than a memory, and their inhabitants are prepared for triple-digit temperatures and many months without rain.

Few species can tolerate such harsh environmental conditions. For this reason, vernal pools are strongholds of native species that have evolved to cope with short periods of inundation and many months of desiccation. The reserve hosts four out of California's 23 species of fairy shrimp, among them the endangered Conservancy fairy shrimp (Branchinecta conservatio) and vernal pool fairy shrimp (B. lynchi). Other endangered species present include the California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense) and 24 species of endemic, rare and protected plants. The reserve also serves as potential habitat for the endangered San Joaquin kit fox (Vulpes macrotis mutica), which occurs on nearby lands.

More than 57 bird species have been spotted on the reserve, including Swainson's and ferruginous hawks, burrowing owls and grassland songbirds. "Sometimes you encounter flocks of horned larks that stream toward you, hundreds of them, in an unending group," Swarth says.

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Merced Vernal Pools join Natural Reserve System