The Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration (CCBER) is a research center under the Office of Research at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) whose mission is to preserve regional biodiversity and restore ecosystems on campus lands. CCBER has three main functions: curation and preservation of natural history collections, native coastal ecosystem and habitat restoration on campus lands, and education and outreach for both UCSB students and local community schools.
History
In 1954, a UCSB faculty member, Dr. Cornelius H. Muller, founded a herbarium to be used for research and teaching. Another faculty member, Mary Erickson, founded a vertebrate collection with similar goals. In 1995, the two facilities merged to become the Museum of Systematics and Ecology (MSE). In 2005, MSE teamed up with the UCSB ecological restoration program, whose director was Wayne Ferren, to become CCBER. CCBER's first director was Jennifer Thorsch, a botanical researcher at UCSB.
CCBER was named after Vernon and Mary Cheadle. Vernon Cheadle was the chancellor at UCSB between 1962 and 1977, but also a botanist who, along with Katherine Esau, contributed thousands of specimens to CCBER's natural history collections. Vernon Cheadle and Katherine Esau formed a research partnership at UC Davis in 1950, and when Cheadle became the chancellor of UCSB in 1962, Esau followed so they could continue their collaboration. Katherine Esau, a pioneering plant anatomist, focused much of her work on phloem, the food conducting cells in higher plants. Esau published numerous award-winning botany textbooks, including "Plant Anatomy," published in 1953. The Cheadle and Esau families have made generous donations that have ensured the long-term operation of CCBER.
The current senior staff at CCBER are: Katja Seltmann (Kathrine Esau Director), Lisa Stratton (Director of Ecosystem Management), and Gregory Wahlert (Shirley Tucker Curator of Biodiversity Collections and Botanical Research).
Projects and Programs
Ecological Restoration
CCBER conducts varying amounts of native ecosystem and habitat restoration and management on over 300 acres of open-space on the UCSB campus, between the Goleta Slough and Elwood Mesa in Goleta, California. The open space areas are used for multiple purposes, such as ecosystem and native habitat restoration and conservation, education, research, outreach, and community involvement.
According to Section 30607.1 of the California Coastal Act, when UCSB plans to develop and potentially damage land, specifically wetlands, they must undertake restoration projects on separate pieces of land of equal or greater area and biological productivity in order to mitigate the ecological impacts of construction. Many of these restoration efforts are handed over to CCBER, including San Clemente wetland, the lot 38 bioswale, North Bluff and the Campus Lagoon.
Some of the open space areas managed by CCBER already contained portions of intact native vegetation and/or wetlands that are protected by the Clean Water Act and Coastal Act, as well as areas that are being restored after significant human impacts, such as North Bluff, Campus Lagoon, Manzanita Village, Storke Wetlands, San Clemente wetlands, and the 136-acre (55 ha) North Campus Open Space. While many of CCBER's restoration projects are products of this agreement, many are also volunteer based restoration projects. Examples of CCBER's volunteer based restoration projects include parts of Campus Lagoon, and most of North Campus Open Space.
CCBER's management areas include: East Bluff, Campus Lagoon, Lot 38 Bioswale, Manzanita Village, North Bluff, North Campus Open Space (NCOS), North Parcel, San Clemente, San Joaquin, Sierra Madre, South Parcel, and Storke Wetland. The open spaces managed by CCBER are characterized by coastal dune, oak woodland, coastal sage scrub, grassland, and wetland ecosystems.
Restoration methods include non-native species removal, reintroduction of native species, and often the creation of wetland features such as bioswales and vernal pools. In some cases, the restoration involves the removal or conversion of structures built during previous uses or ownership of the land. For example, nearly half of the area that comprises NCOS was the site of a former golf course before CCBER began restoring the wetland and upland habitats that previously existed there.