Santa Cruz Mountains Plant and Wildlife Biodiversity Surveys – Evaluating Biodiversity across Agricultural and Natural Lands
Mentor & Lab: Chad Moura – Santa Cruz Mountains Reserve
Positions: 2 interns
Tentative dates: June-September 2025
Project Location: Santa Cruz Mountains Reserve office is located on UCSC Campus in Natural Sciences 2, Room 463; majority of field work will occur at Cascade Ranch (San Mateo County) and other partner properties in the Santa Cruz Mountains, around 25-35 minutes north along Hwy 1.
Project Background: The Santa Cruz Mountains Reserve will be conducting a variety of biodiversity surveys across partner properties in the Santa Cruz Mountains, including the sustainable farm Cascade Ranch, as well as state, federal, and land-trust managed landscapes. These lands and properties have a variety of different land use, access, habitat types, and ecosystems, and the Santa Cruz Mountains is interested in collecting baseline biodiversity data and metrics across this diverse landscape to be provided to land managers, researchers, and students. This baseline biodiversity data is often a critical first step to understanding ecosystem and population dynamics, such as presence and absence on a landscape, as well as general species richness, abundance, and diversity. Surveys and data to be collected will target a wide variety of plant and wildlife taxa including amphibians, birds, insects and other invertebrates, mammals, reptiles as well as wetland, grassland, coastal scrub, and forest plant communities.
Intern duties: The two CAMINO interns will work with Santa Cruz Mountains Reserve staff as well as other partner biologists, botanists, and researchers to evaluate the biodiversity of several partner properties across the Santa Cruz Mountains. In 2025, we will primarily be focusing on wildlife and plant surveys across a sustainable farm, Cascade Ranch, which is located along the coast of southern San Mateo County, neighboring Año Nuevo State Park/Reserve. Students will be required to conduct field surveys for wildlife and plant communities, including surveys that require auditory and visual identification, as well as the occasional handling and collection of wildlife and plants. Students will have a combination of 75% field work, with 25% office time working on the data collection in the field as well as data processing, clean up, and analysis and reporting of data for Santa Cruz Mountains Reserve partners and collaborators.
Intern qualifications: No previous field work is required. Students will be working outdoors along the Santa Cruz and San Mateo coastal and mountain habitats, and can expect sometimes difficult terrain (inclines, uneven ground, dense and thorny vegetation, wet/muddy conditions, slippery streams), the potential risk of encountering noxious or harmful plants and wildlife (thorny/spikey thistles, poison oak, stinging nettle, ticks, rattlesnakes), as well as a variety of weather conditions (hot, dry, wet, misting, raining, and windy conditions – often times all throughout the same day). Field work will typically be scheduled for early morning shifts (6am – 2pm) or midday shifts (8am – 4pm), depending on the survey type. Office work will be more consistently scheduled for midday (8am – 4pm) shifts.
Do you recommend the intern(s) volunteer in your lab during Spring quarter?
Yes if they are interested in any of the biodiversity work we do, please volunteer or intern with us for units in the Spring. For more information please visit our website: https://santacruzmountainsreserve.ucsc.edu/internships/