Our goal is to provide a hands-on example of the effects of seed predation on plant communities, particularly in the ecotone between shrublands and grasslands. The students will practice coming up with research questions based on observations, as well as conducting seed predation experiments, running transects, and using exclosures. Saturday afternoon we would like to go for a hike on the interpretive loop. Saturday late afternoon we would put out petri plates with seeds (e.g. lentils, sesame seeds) for the seed predation study, taking a vehicle up the hill to our experimental site, which is up above Whale Point, near the weather station. Sunday morning we would walk from Redwood Camp up to the experimental site. Then, we would count seeds, run transects into and out of the shrubland/grassland ecotone, and census small mammal exclosures (these were established in 2005).

Approved