Field Day - Cahill Riparian Preserve

ABI 198 - Section B

4/10/25


On Wednesday, we went out for our second field day at the Cahill Riparian Preserve. There were some complications getting into the site, but we managed to get a good hour of time to observe the environment as well as many plant and animal interactions.


Meeting Minutes

10:00 am: Met at Mann Labs parking lot  

10:45 am: Arrived at Cahill Riparian Preserve, getting stuck at the locked gate

11:10 am: Ventured into the property, briefly walking down to Putah Creek

11:25 am: Returned to the car and traveled to the initially intended location

11:45 am: Began observations in pairs

    - Identifying native / invasive species

    - Observing ecological interactions / relationships 

    - Considering stressors affecting the ecosystem and developing questions 

12:40 pm: Group Discussion

    - Discussed the many interactions we saw, many of which were between insects and both plants and animals. There was an invasive species of grass observed, and carpenter ants found in damaged trees. A colony of red ants was observed eating a small snake and a number of insects were observed interacting with assorted plants such as flowers and trees. 

1:05 pm: Depart Cahill Riparian Preserve

1:40 pm: Arrive back on campus 


Some pictures from the class


Western Toad

Ithuriel's Spear

Chlorogalum pomeridianum

California Quail

Tipula

Snake being eaten by red ants

Hairy Vetch

Interesting interactions 
    - Carpenter ants found on trees where the bark was peeling
    -  Quails picking around fallen trees
    - Some trees were seen burnt at the base and hollow at the bottom

Goals and Progress
    We have now completed two field days and collected a lot of observations. This, coupled with connecting our observations with literature, should enable us to begin to form more refined ideas and questions that can be proposed to the rest of the class. By the end of the coming week, we should have a question selected and should be beginning work on developing our experiment, so our next session should be spent discussing proposed questions and refining them, narrowing down our subject matter. 

Reminders
    We have R homework due Friday! Be sure to brainstorm questions for our session tomorrow and put them in our Idea Repository in the Drive. We will hopefully spend the first bit of class doing observations in the Oak Grove, but the brunt of our session will be focused on developing our ideas and connecting them to literature. 

Friday Agenda - Arboretum Oak Grove (Tentative)

12:10 pm: Meet at the Oak Grove

12:10 - 12:15 pm: Debrief 

12:15 - 12:40 pm: Self-guided or paired observations, noting plant and animal interactions and comparing the Oak environment here to the Oak environment in Cahill Riparian Preserve 

12:40 - 12:50 pm: Reconvene, group discussion regarding the days observations

12:50 - 1:10 pm: Discuss the idea repository and new potential questions 

1:10 - 1:45 pm: In pairs or groups, take an idea or question and connect it to literature, develop it further

1:45 - 1:55 pm: Reconvene and discuss 

2:00 pm: Depart the Oak Grove

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