New ANR Position
Plant Conservation Specialist
Position Description: The Plant Conservation Specialist is a field plant ecologist with research emphasizing rare plant species and diverse communities. The Specialist could be trained in population, community, or landscape ecology, conservation systematics, biogeography, or other areas of natural resources that include studies of sensitive, rare or uncommon species. The Specialist could provide pivotal information on rare plants and their communities in ongoing landscape-scale planning and management processes. These include biodiversity contributions of managed lands and their overall contribution to biodiversity planning, managing habitat preserves under climate change, exotic species invasions, increased fire frequency and nitrogen deposition, and other anthropogenic impacts. This would be a statewide position with emphasis on regions of the state with exceptionally high plant diversity.
Justification: This position would address the Sustainable Natural Ecosystems Initiative, that emphasizes biodiversity, climate change, and land use. As stated in the Strategic Vision, “California’s future depends on …… resilient, biologically diverse, healthy ecosystems…” Southern California is one of the global "hotspots" for plant biodiversity, having more than 300 species listed in the "sensitive" species category. The human population of the region has increased 32% in the last decade, with increasing urban/wildland/agriculture interface conflicts because of the need to protect threatened and endangered species and habitats. Currently no CE Specialist focuses on the ecology and conservation of rare plants, so this fills a niche in UCCE. This position would provide research and outreach support to agencies statewide responsible for managing conservation reserves, including city, county, state, and federal lands and UC Natural Reserves. It would also provide information to ongoing Conservation Habitat Plans that are responsible for monitoring hundreds of rare species statewide. Current Specialists and Advisors in southern California contribute to these outreach efforts as do OR faculty from the UCR Center for Conservation Biology, but none is involved in applied conservation diversity research to address the needs of these agencies.
Extension: The Specialist would initiate programs with and provide information to UC farm and natural resource advisors. UCCE advisors trained in agriculture and traditional resource management receive requests from clientele for information on conservation issues, but with insufficient campus-based resources to fill these growing conservation needs. These include the role of rare species in agricultural, grazing, and other managed lands, stewardship to promote biodiversity in managed and wild lands, and reducing urban/agricultural/wildland habitat conflicts. The Conservation Specialist would link with land managers from local and federal agencies, local botanic gardens that specialize in native plants, legislators, citizen's groups, private conservation organizations, and other stakeholders.
Research: The Conservation Specialist would conduct research on patterns and mechanisms of plant species occurrences, including plant-environment relationships, climate change impacts, invasive species and nitrogen deposition impacts, plant community interactions, factors that determine rarity, genetic differentiation of isolated populations and promotion of genetic exchange, rare plant demography and genetics, patterns of endemism, landscape scale spatial patterns of wildlands and managed lands, and/or preserve design and planning. Publication outlets include the ANR website, the California Digital Library, California Agriculture, and peer-reviewed journals including Conservation Biology, and a large selection of conservation, botany, plant ecology, and applied ecological journals.
ANR Continuum: Within UCR the Plant Conservation Specialist could work with AES plant ecologists and geneticists in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, with UCCE Natural Resource Specialists Edith Allen (restoration ecology) and Thomas Scott (wildlife ecology), with other campus Specialists in related fields such as weed science and environmental sciences, and with 100+ AES and I&R researchers affiliated with the Center for Conservation Biology. These encompass a range of disciplines including plant ecology, conservation biology, population genetics, invasive plant biology, environmental horticulture, plant biogeography, landscape ecology, and other plant and environmental-related disciplines. Regional Advisors in southern counties whose main assignments are invasive species and other environmental issues, but who must deal with the realities of plant conservation, would benefit from collaboration with this Specialist.
Support: This position would be located in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences at UCR. Office and laboratory space would be provided. Greenhouse, growth chamber, and field space would be provided upon request. An initial complement would be provided to set up the new laboratory, and an annual operating budget equivalent to other UCR Specialists.
Other support: Grant funding sources for this position range from basic research funded by NSF, USDA, EPA, and other nationally competitive grant programs, to regional and local government and private programs on conservation and environmental research.
Location: Southern California is one of the plant diversity hotspots of the world, and UCR’s location places the Specialist in the center of this diversity. A number of habitat conservation plans are in place in southern California, and the Specialist can play a crucial role in the sensitive species management and monitoring effort.
**The “Justification” section above is the new required section that has been added to the 2012 CE Positions Template. Re-submissions must include this section in their revised proposal. New submissions must use this template.