Sierra Nature Notes

Links:

General Natural History
Yosemite Nature Notes Pete Devine, Yosemite Association's Resident Naturalist, has started a blog about day to day park happenings along with notes and observations from the field. Check in often as he shares his decades of Yosemite experience and knowledge.
Biology of the Sierra Nevada From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. A very good overview of the Sierra's biology and ecology.
USGS Western Ecological Research Center Excellent site for research papers on global climate change and biodiversity. Now includes a new feature: Ask An Expert! Send your questions to WERC scientists.
California Biodiversity Council formed in 1991 to improve coordination and cooperation between the various resource management and environmental protection organizations at federal, state, and local levels.
Center for Biodiversity Protecting endangered species and wild places through science, policy, education, and environmental law.
Kaweah Oaks Reserve A nature preserve whose primary purpose is to save the valley oaks and surrounding native plant and wildlife communities that are our natural heritage here in Tulare County, California.
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite Association
Sequoia and Kings Canyon Natural History Association
Devil's Postpile National Monument
Inyo National Forest
Sequoia National Forest
Eastern Sierra Forum & Links
Sierra Foothill Conservancy a land trust dedicated to the preservation of open space and traditional land uses threatened by the rapid urbanization in the foothills of Fresno and Madera Counties
Ecology of the Northern Sierra Nevada Some good links and information about the natural history of the Sierra. Bird, plant and animal lists of species. Links to geology sites.
UC Berkeley Links to Natural History Education Sites
UC Berkeley Online Collections On-line collection catalogs of interest to natural historians. Many of these lists also include on-line keys, image databases, checklists, bibliographies, and so on.
CalPhoto Online database of plant & animal photos.
California's Plants and animals DF&G database of photos of California plants & animals.
On-line Wildlife Research Publications Online publications of the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station, Redwood Sciences Laboratory, Arcata, CA.

Wildlife
The National Wildlife Federation has created an extremely cool searchable wildlife database. It allows you to search by critter or even lists the wildlife in your area. A photo and fairly detailed description of each animal is provided: For the Sierra Biozone and The eNature.com guides to plants and wildlife.

Report Wildlife Observations
Another important web site that's just started is iNaturalist.org: "where you can record what you see in nature, meet other nature lovers, and learn about the natural world." This innovative site allows everyone to record their natural history observations (critters, interesting plants etc.), have it located on a Google map and even link your observation to a Flikr photo, if available. As observation numbers grow, this site also has the potential to make a major contribution to knowledge of species distribution. It's an outstanding resource for the amateur naturalist, schools and even professionals.

Mammals
Species List of Sierra Mammals A fairly good list of mammals of the Sierra with some links to more information about an animal.
California Bighorn Sheep Foundation Recently listed as endangered.
Mountain Lions
Carnivores U.C. Berkeley carnivores web site
Rodents U.C. Berkeley rodent web site
Fisher From the Center for Biological Diversity's application seeking endangered status with USF&W for the Fisher. A good paper on range and status of the Fisher (PDF format).

Reptiles & Amphibians
Dr. Roland Knapp's Frog Blog. This is an excellent blog written by a scientist about his work at the Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Lab on frogs and amphibians. Subscribe to the RSS Feed to automatically find when new essays are posted. Roland's blog is part of a larger Nature Blog Network. Check that out for links to other excellent science writing by people actually doing primary research.
Mountain Yellow Legged Frog Also maintained by Dr. Knapp, this site is intended to provide info on the natural history and conservation of the mountain yellow-legged frog, and is written in such a way as to make the information accessible to the educated public.
Vance Vredenburg's Lab The research in our lab focuses broadly on the ecology, evolution and conservation of amphibians.
Amphibia Web Amphibia Web is an online resource for people concerned with the declining amphibian problem.
Salamander Feeding Movies This is way cool. Long tongues flap! Bugs go zap!
Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Lab SNARL provides a modern laboratory and experimental stream complex that promotes and encourages scientific research all year long.

Birds
Audubon Society
Field Guide to the Birds of the Sierra Nevada Project
Grace Bell Bird Call Collection
Naturesongs.comNatureSong has been recording the sounds of nature for over 23 years. All of our nature sounds are continuous, natural sounds of nature and birdsongs recorded live on location.
Identify and Report Dead Birds suspected suspected of dying of West Nile Virus (State of California website).

Geology
USGS & NPS Geology of Yosemite From general intoduction to technical mapping of structures.
Aerial Geologic Tours of the Sierra photo array of several important geologic structures in the Sierra. Dr. Allen Glazner has also produced several animated graphics of the migration — from the northeast and trending towards the Sierra — of volcanic activity over the last 60 thousand years. It's a pretty neat movie, though takes awhile to load.
Independence Dike Swarm If you've read James Moore's Exploring the Highest Sierra, you've read about this intrusion throughout the central Sierra. A geologic feature with it's own web site is kind of cool...

Environmental Education and History
Yosemite National Institutes Begun in Yosemite 30 years ago, YI has expanded to several campuses in California and Washington. They have great environmental education courses for teachers and schools.
CREEC The California Regional Environmental Education Community (CREEC) Network is an educational project whose mission is:To develop a communication network which provides educators with access to High Quality environmental education resources to enhance the environmental literacy of California Students. Searchable by subject or county.
The Yosemite Web An excellent source for online text of books, old documents and maps of Yosemite. Also links to lodging and accomadation in the Yosemite area.

Management

SierraNevadaWild.gov
2/3/2010: This site will soon move to SierraWild.Gov
Provides a centralized reliable source for current information and recent news about the 28 designated Wilderness areas in the Sierra Nevada. Help people plan their next wilderness visit, from brainstorming ideas through leaving the trailhead with everything you’ll need for a safe, enjoyable, responsible trip

Sierra Nevada Network Inventory and Monitoring Program The Sierra Nevada Network (SIEN) is comprised of Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and Devils Postpile National Monument. Along with all 270 national parks participating in this inventory and monitoring effort, the Sierra Nevada Network has begun a long-term plan to:

Complete a basic inventory of the natural resources of our parks.
Create scientific strategies to monitor these natural resources.
Apply scientific information gained from the Inventory and Monitoring program to National Park Service planning strategies.

SNEP Report The Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project (SNEP) is an assessment of the Sierra Nevada ecoregion which was requested by Congress in 1992. SNEP also broadly evaluates an entire set of Sierra Nevada ecosystems, including their social, economic, and ecological components.
Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project Map/Data Site This SNEPMap/Data web site has been created in response to the recognized need for improved access to data files, records, digital data.
GIS Data Maps of the Sierra from the SNEP Report
Mono Basin Clearinghouse An excellent source for research reports and updates on the progress of restoring Mono Lake.Many links to other Sierra resources and GIS Data.
Mono Lake Web Site Good selection of natural history books; history and progress of restoring Mono Lake to it's pre-diversion ecology; research article on Mono Basin AND current temperature and lake level.
Central Sierra Environmental Resources Center CSERC defends 2,000,000 acres of the central region of the Sierra Nevada against a wide range of environmental threats.

Maps & Data
California Spatial Information Library (CaSIL) Provides DRG maps for all of California through its interactive Map Interface. An excellent source of topo maps for both recreational use and for GIS mapping projects.
California Gap Analysis The California Gap Analysis Project is publishing a CD-ROM to provide you with a handy way to obtain the entire GIS database, final report, and an interactive atlas of California's biodiversity.
Center for Biological Diversity Protecting endangered species and wild places of western North America and the Pacific through science, policy, education, and environmental law.
Sequoia and Kings Canyon Natural Resources Management Information about the Inventory & Monitoring programs of Yosemite, Devils Postpile and Sequoia and Kings Canyon. Species lists and overviews.
The Sierra Bioregion, an overview
Nature Net National Park Service database of park resources and science projects.
Geographic Information Systems An explanation of GIS and links to data sets from ESRI, publishers of the GIS software ArcView.
GIS data for northern California and other useful GIS-related links
GIS Data Sets Public Domain (mostly)
The Southern Sierra Geographic Information Cooperative (SSGIC) is funded by the Joint Fire Science Program and is focused on developing and testing an approach to incorporate wildland fuels information management into an interagency, landscape-scale planning framework. It's also possible to design and download USGS digital topo and aerial maps of much of the southern Sierra, with a number of database overlays.