By Kristen Zumdahl
Thanks to the generosity of Linda Duttenhaver and Morton La Kretz, the LKC was founded in 2017 to identify, investigate, and help solve pressing environmental problems that impact California’s diverse habitats and species. We do this in partnership with reserve staff, university faculty and students, and collaborating organizations. The past year was especially busy and impactful for the LKC. Here are a few highlights.
Fire in the foothills
Tracking recovery from the Lake Fire
The July 5–10, 2024 Lake Fire burned 3,200 acres across the northeastern portion of Sedgwick Reserve. The LKC helped coordinate and conducted many research projects to help understand the fire’s impacts on our local plants and animals. For example, during the 2025 March-May growing season LKC staff and graduate student research assistants Priscilla Ta and Thuy-tien Bui re-surveyed dozens of vegetation plots established prior to the burn. Despite the drier-than average spring, burned chaparral and coastal sage scrub areas produced a flush of native fire-following plant species like deerweed, coastal lotus, foothill needlegrass, and arroyo lupine.
La Kretz Center fellows Priscilla Ta and Thuy-Tien Bui surveying Lake Fire postburn vegetation in plots dominated by arroyo lupine (above) and coastal lotus (below) (photos by F. Davis).
With support from Sedgwick staff, we trained a hardworking group of docents to survey for invasive weeds along fuel breaks created during the Lake Fire. Fortunately no new noxious weed species were detected.
The LKC provided logistical and financial support to multi-year studies examining post-burn soil chemistry, oak physiology, wildlife responses, and changes in surface reflectance. The LKC also supported contemporary artist Ethan Turpin who installed time-lapse cameras on a burned hillside, capturing post-fire regrowth for future public exhibits.
Catalina mariposa lilies and flowering chaparral yucca on a hillside burned in the Lake Fire, May 2022 (Image courtesy of Ethan Turpin).
Prescribed fire research
The LKC continued monitoring post-fire recovery of areas burned in TREX training burns conducted in November 2022, November 2023, and November 2024. We are working with collaborating graduate students and faculty to analyze data and publish our findings, but it is safe to say that – despite burns occurring at the same time of year on the same soil type in very similar vegetation – each burn has a somewhat distinctive recovery pattern related to the site’s fire history, fire severity, and precipitation in the year following fire.
TREX 2022 monitoring plot in the first growing season after burning (above, April 2023) and third growing season (below, April 2025). In 2023 the site was dominated by fire following plants such as whispering bells and deerweed. By 2025 resprouting purple sage had recovered to dominate much of the plot. (photos by F. Davis).
In November 2025, Santa Barbara County Fire Department conducted a successful 2-day prescribed burn across 110 acres in the southwest corner of the reserve. The primary goal of the burn was to reduce fuel levels and associated fire risk for neighboring Woodstock Ranch. The LKC and collaborators from UCSB (e.g., Professors Carla D’Antonio and Lee Anderegg, Researcher Shane Dewees, PhD student Laura Dagg, and San Diego State University (Prof. Dan Sousa, PI) took advantage of the burn to collect a rich dataset on pre-burn vegetation and fire behavior. We will continue to monitor oak woodland and coastal sage scrub plots for the next several years to evaluate prescribed fire effects on vegetation recovery and plant and animal diversity.
Prescribed burning in the southwest corner of the reserve on November 9, 2025 (above) and a view of the same area on November 10 (below). (photos by F. Davis)
Oak biology and ecology
Oak woodlands remain a central focus for LKC-supported researchers and collaborators. This year, several ongoing projects continued to track oak survival, growth, reproduction, and physiological stress. Ph.D. student and LKC graduate fellow Kaili Brande successfully defended her dissertation on the fire ecology of coast live oak, blue oak and valley oak. Kaili is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oregon.
Most recently professors Lee Anderegg, Victoria Sork and Frank Davis initiated new multi-year research into climate adaptation traits of valley oak and coast live oak. The study combines greenhouse and field experiments to investigate genetic and morphological variation within and between populations of these species
UCSB EEMB professors Lee Anderegg and Yong Zhou and Greography professor Zoe Pierrat take a photo break from sowing valley oak acorns in a new experimental garden installed in December 2025.
Coast to Crest: 2025 Research Symposium
In collaboration with the Point Conception Institute, the LKC co-hosted a 1-day symposium—Coast to Crest: Connecting Science, Partnership, and Practice Across Landscapes. The event brought together a growing community of researchers working across regional reserves, strengthening shared understanding of ecological change, land stewardship, and applied conservation science.
Outreach, Education, and Researcher Support
Throughout the year, the LKC remained committed to education, public engagement, and scientific communication. Frank Davis shared Sedgwick-based research and applied fire ecology by delivering scientific talks at the Ecological Society of America annual meeting and to the Santa Barbara FireSafe Council, connecting current research with broader scientific and community audiences.
Education and outreach on the reserve continued through tours. LKC staff led docent trainings, the Fire Followers tour, Fire Effects Monitoring sessions, and a fire ecology field tour for students from Midland School, providing participants with direct exposure to fire-adapted ecosystems, monitoring methods, and ongoing research activities.
Supporting emerging scientists also remained a priority. The LKC hired and supported Bren students, Natasha Atkins, Angie Taylor, Jimmy Benjamin, and Lenaya-Aiden Gonzales, Thuy-Tien Bui, and Priscilla Ta along with EEMB student, Joanna Tang and early-career researcher, Shane Dewees through direct funding, field mentorship, and logistical assistance, helping build research skills while advancing long-term ecological studies at Sedgwick Reserve.