The Living Landscape: Cathy Koehler – McLaughlin Reserve's director par excellence
- Kathleen Scavone
- Posted On
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Cathy Koehler doesn't allow any moss to grow under her feet, although she may have studied those plants.
She has worn many hats during her scientific endeavors: director of the McLaughlin Natural Reserve outside of Lower Lake, conducting research in both North American and International field stations, teacher of zoology and ecology, hosting public outreach events at McLaughlin Reserve, participating in K-12 science education programs and more.
According to the preface by Alexander N. Glazer in the book, “The Environmental Legacy of the UC Natural Reserve System,” University of California Press, “Because of the stewardship, dedication, and effectiveness of its staff, the reserve system has for close to half a century made it possible for students and faculty to advance public understanding of natural environments and their complex functioning."
He further states, “During the past 150 years, widespread disregard for the integrity of the natural world has resulted in a level of disruption with frightening implications for the future. In this situation, the value of the research and teaching that the Natural Reserve System (NRS) enables has become widely evident.”
The 41 reserves that are part of the UC Natural Reserve System, or NRS, system in California function as outdoor laboratories. By providing locations for research and teaching, they contribute to humanity's understanding of how the natural world works, which informs us about the needs of our species and how we humans are impacting our world.
The reserves provide the people living in nearby local communities with opportunities to engage with researchers and land stewards working to understand ecological and evolutionary principles as well as California's human histories.
Some of the nearby Northern California reserves include the Bodega Marine Reserve in Sonoma County, Hans Jenny Pygmy Forest Reserve in Mendocino County, Chickering American River Reserve in the Sierra Nevada mountains, Jepson Prairie Reserve near Davis, and the Donald and Sylvia McLaughlin Natural Reserve which straddles Lake, Napa and Yolo counties.
The McLaughlin Reserve, established in 1992 as 80 wildland acres on which scientists could conduct research within the land holdings of Homestake Mining Co.'s McLaughlin Project, expanded in 2002 to more than 7,000 acres when the mining effort ended.
The reserve is operated by the University of California, Davis, and is unique in many respects from the other reserves of the NRS in that its origins were in the vision of management team of Homestake Mining Co.'s McLaughlin Project, which operated a gold mine that employed around 200 people at the site from the 1980s to the 2000s.
Today it is producing world-class science because this is where scientists of all ilk come to study geology, ecology, archaeology and more.
Following is an interview with Cathy, via email.
Q. With all of the science that goes on at the Reserve, are there more plans for “citizen scientist” projects such as your Reserve hikes, collaborations with the community through the Middletown Art Center and the public lectures you have held out there? (Mary Ellen Hannibal's book, “Citizen Scientist – Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction” should have mentioned your work!)
A. I see a difference between outreach activities (to bring the science conducted at, and knowledge about, McLaughlin to the interested public) and citizen science activities. The outreach opportunities we offer continue in the form of some educational hikes and seasonal "wildflower walks," possibly lectures depending on researchers and their interest in presenting, and on occasion collaboration with other organizations like MAC.
However, citizen science opportunities would be different. Anyone interested in being a citizen scientist could attend our outreach events, but the events themselves are not offering the "science" opportunities.
Science is a process, it's "a way of knowing" (in the words of Dr. John Moore), a way of looking at and understanding the natural world." It's basically an action, which means that citizen scientists need to be engaged in activities that help us understand the natural world.
To that end, there are ways that interested folk can contribute to collecting and sorting the information that helps us understand our world, and they can participate in the activities that we engage in at the reserve to support science. So, if there are individuals out there who would like to commit to some simple or more involved activities, and become a part of advancing the scientific pursuits at the reserve, they are welcome to contact us and we'll help them identify how to become contributors in ways that are meaningful to them.
Of course, there are also ways of contributing to the reserve without committing to science … volunteers who are interested in becoming part of the function and fibre of the place in other ways are also welcome to work with us to craft a way that they can have a meaningful experience and contribution.
I have all sorts of ideas on how people can become involved with the feserve, and have meaningful input and contributions to science and conservation. It would be great to have a dedicated "volunteer" base of people who are willing to become trained contributors to the McLaughlin team and regularly come out here to do their citizen science task.
Alas, it's hard to find people who would like to be regular contributors instead of just lending a hand at one-time education or volunteer events. I'd be happy to create a real citizen science program, though, if there are individuals who are willing to invest the time and enthusiasm to be citizen scientists!
Q. Can you talk a bit about your experiences on becoming a scientist and what led to your career? For example, in the book "Lab Girl" by acclaimed scientist, Hope Jahren she discussed the mostly male scientists and the sometimes intolerant and dismissive attitudes she faced when starting her career.
A. It was fun reading "Lab Girl,” lots of things resonated with me and my experiences. But there were also differences.
For myself, coming out of high school I knew I wanted to pursue either art or biology. I chose biology, but that huge and encompassing word does not really provide much of a career framework other than outlining that you want to work with living things! I tended to want to work with animals, but not in a lab setting, so initially envisioned that vet school would be a way to have a career working with animals.
But in my third year of university, I had the good fortune to personally meet some bats which led to a fascination with them, and the opportunity to interact with them by working with a professor who studied bat ecology, and so I found myself with the opportunity to get involved in research in animal ecology.
I worked in bat research for my undergraduate thesis and my masters in science (at the University of Calgary), and thereafter started working in wildlife ecology. After a number of years working field jobs, I started a Ph.D. program. This was the first time I had a chance to formally teach science to undergraduate students as well as k-12 students and teachers.
I quickly realized that being an ambassador for science and helping people understand the ways that science allows us to understand our world was much more exciting to me than was being the person who is doing the extremely detailed experimental design and data collection that is the bedrock of science, and which is necessary in order for us to be confident in our understanding of the results of our inquiries.
So I aborted the Ph.D. pursuit and, in addition to continuing to work with other scientists on various projects, got involved in teaching science-content workshops for k-12 teachers and managing a public outreach program for a botanic garden while my husband finished his Ph.D.
We both wanted to continue working in wildlands, and having worked at research stations every year since I was 21, I could see that working in support of research at such a station would be a good use of my skills. When the opportunity to operate a research station arose, my husband and I co-applied and got the job at the McLaughlin Reserve.
You ask about a female scientist working amidst colleagues who are mostly male. Interestingly, I never felt marginalized or otherwise judged in my wanderings through the world of scientific inquiry. I was often the solo female, or one of only two or three females, in a group of mostly male colleagues (professors and graduate students), but did not reflect upon the gender distribution of these groups until it started to be pointed out to me.
I was invited to the nascent "Women in Science" outreach efforts that started to arise in the mid 1980s, but was never motivated to become involved in meetings or discussions, in part because I am not a person who gravitates toward clubs, support groups, or other gatherings based on a characteristic/distinction, and in part because I personally never felt disadvantaged or treated differently because of my gender.
I was also generally not aware of any academic inequality for females. However, I did encounter instances of male professors making sexual advances on female students, although apparently not in a quid-pro-quo way.
Alas, no sector of our modern societies seems to be immune to that, and maybe human civilization will see a slow shift away from patriarchal dominance in cultures in the next few centuries!
Q. Along with NASA scientists who have been out to the reserve studying our unique-to-this-part-of-the -world serpentinite, can you tell us about a couple of other unique studies that have taken place out there?
A. Well, I wouldn't say that serpentinite is unique to this part of the world. It is globally rare, and limited to continental edges where oceanic plates have subducted. Maine and Vermont, in fact, have serpentinites evidencing an ancient and long-defunct subduction zone on the east coast.
As for the work with the NASA scientists, Dawn Cardace moved on to a faculty position after her postdoc at NASA, and through collaborations driven by her and her NASA colleagues the work at McLaughlin has grown into a collaborative with investigators from numerous universities across the country.
What was unique about the location, here at McLaughlin, is that you had not only extensive and accessible serpentinites, but they were located within a research station.
The value of research stations to scientific inquiry is huge: it is very risky setting up experiments in areas that could be disturbed (incidentally or intentionally) by recreation or development, so what could be better than the availability of a location that is designated for research and teaching and has the attributes that are needed for your research?
All sorts of interesting studies have taken place here. Because the landscape in our region is very complex, with the jumble of geologic substrates supporting a jumble of different plant communities (and therefore our region comprises a globally notable area of high biodiversity), it lends itself well to scientific investigations that seek to understand about how plants adapt to challenging soil and climate conditions.
In the last decade there have also been several studies investigating how different plant communities might respond to climate change.
Because the reserve is also a location where land stewardship is maintaining native grassland and wildflower prairies, the year-round flowering of native plants (exemplified in the spring by tremendous wildflower blooms) support healthy populations of native pollinators, along with quite a few research projects that study those pollinators.
Q. What are you and other scientists studying at the reserve in relation to the effects climate change is having on our county and California?
A. Not a huge talking point for McLaughlin. McLaughlin is not a site that lends itself well to nailing down the effects of climate change. It is not on the coast, and it is not alpine (two ecosystems that are more likely to exhibit blatant manifestations of ecological responses to directional shifts in climate).
And the Mediterranean region of California is notable for how variable the climate is from year to year; it is normal for the Mediterranean region of California to have years of abundant rainfall, and years of very little rain, and everything in between.
Ecological studies on the effects of climate change produce clear results more-so in locations that are less variable because then the researcher can introduce variability (in temperature and precipitation) that exposes plants and animals to more unique conditions.
That's why we mostly hear about climate change research that is being conducted in coastal areas, in the Colorado mountains, in arctic regions.
That being said, the reserve has been host to research that sheds some light on ecological responses to climate change. A long-term data set, from research that initially intended to record shifts in plant species abundance and diversity in association with the normal year by year climatic variability, has revealed unanticipated shifts in plant community composition over a couple of decades in association with directional shifts in weather patterns associated with global warming.
Long-term data sets are rare .... so many research projects only last a few years which makes it hard to study the effects of variation in a highly variable environment! So it's great when a good long-term data set exists, and allows people to look back in time to pick out patterns that were not initially intended to be studied.
That data set has allowed for the development of meaningful experiments that can manipulate the plant community and the weather patterns to further investigate the plant community shifts that have been observed in the past couple of decades.
Q. As a former educator, what would you recommend that children, girls, in particular, study or get involved in to further their budding science interests?
A. We know children are naturally curious. I think most of them have budding science interests, which start by just watching the world around them. Let’s spend more time getting kids outdoors and interacting with nature.
Patient observation generates questions (why are those ants all on the branches of that shrub species, but not the other one? Why does this one kind of plant have small leaves here, but big leaves over there? Look at how hard it is for that bug to walk along a leaf that is hairy compared to a smooth leaf! Does that mean the smooth leaf is easier for bugs to eat? Why do I find mammal poop on top of rocks, and whose poop is it?).
And those questions become the building blocks of investigation and critical thinking. So, let's spend more time in the best classroom of all .... nature. And let's encourage kids who are energized by poking around and looking at nature to try to answer some of their questions.
And, if scientists are nearby, kids should be encouraged to hang out with them (and the scientists should be receptive to having kids hanging out!).
Q. Is the reserve still promoting and involved in science for our local schools? I am thinking in particular of the Science and History Day at Ely, the Lake County Geology tour, etc.
A. Not as much as when Paul and I first got here, but yes we still are. I have teachers contact me to craft a field trip for their classes, or to have me come to their classroom. Also, there is an annual program being implemented by UC Davis graduate students that brings locally-relevant ecology to students in Lower Lake Elementary school and culminates with a field trip to McLaughlin.
If you want to mention opportunities for k-12 education at McLaughlin, the best way to phrase it would probably be to tell teachers to reach out to me if they are interested in a field trip or having me come into their classroom.
Q. Since McLaughlin ended their mining operations and began restoring the lands, how is that going?
A. Homestake Mining Co. continues working on reclamation and remediation on the lands that were impacted by their mining operation (which is only about 10 percent of the lands of the McLaughlin Reserve).
It's a long-term job for them, and although I am aware of the challenges and their work, I'm not really the one to properly represent them. But the partnership of the reserve being operated in the natural lands alongside the continued reclamation work of Homestake in the mine-impacted areas is coming along fine.
Q. Does Paul Aigner, stewardship director, have similar duties to yours on the reserve?
A. Paul oversees land management and all the associated record-keeping and paperwork. I do a lot of the physical work of the land management alongside him, but I also oversee and coordinate all other aspects of the reserve (facilities maintenance, research and teaching use, finances, etc). So, no, he does not really have similar duties to myself.
We used to be co-directors, but a few years ago we worked with campus administrators to better delineate the needs of the reserve, and defined the Stewardship Director position to institutionalize the importance of land management work to supporting the research and teaching potential of the reserve.
Thank you very much, Cathy.
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, freelance writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.”