Golden Gate Field Station RESEARCH

The Golden Gate Field Station conducts local, state, regional, and international research projects. Scientists provide direct research support to Department of the Interior agencies in the San Francisco Bay area, using their expertise to address pressing ecological research issues concerning the relationships between habitat loss, urban encroachment, and natural resources. The field station has also developed an international network among USMAB/UNESCO Biosphere Reserves to examine similar ecosystems with analogous problems within a global context. This research program integrates the use of remote sensing, geographic information systems, and empirical data sets for spatial and temporal modeling of biodiversity in the landscape.

Ongoing Projects

• Inventory and monitoring of terrestrial vertebrates, Golden Gate National Recreation Area
• Mammalian predator community ecology in urban and rural settings
• Landscape scale changes to vegetation and fuels in urban-wildland interfaces
• Multi-scaled approach to validation study of California wildlife-habitat relationships model
• Comparative study of terrestrial ecosystems in two coastal biosphere reserves
• Examination of grazing effects on vertebrate diversity in coastal California
• Effects of habitat restoration and human disturbance in Fort Funston, GGNRA
• Tule elk population dynamics at Point Reyes National Seashore