Students: 2025 Grant Applications open December 31, 2024
May 2024. The Tomales Bay Foundation Student Research Grants Program is pleased to award 5 grants for research projects in the Tomales Bay Watershed.
Eel grass in Tomales Bay continues to be the focus of research. Deva Holliman and Liyu Mekonnen, both first year doctoral students from UC Davis, were each awarded $5,000 to study eel grass. Seagrass meadows on the bottom of the bay support rich biodiversity, but their underlying sediments also facilitate processes that may greatly impact local trends of alkalinity and associated carbon storage in Tomales Bay. This research is being closely coordinated with the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory.
Francis Gerraty, of UC Santa Cruz, was awarded a $3,500 grant to continue his study of the transfer of nutrients from the ocean environment via coyotes feeding on seals. This research will provide a better understanding of how marine and terrestrial ecosystems are connected by cross flows of nutrients, energy, and materials which can strongly influence biodiversity and ecosystem function.
Sierra Jaeger received a $2,500 grant to investigate the reproductive ecology of a charismatic California coastal dune wildflower, the yellow sand verbena (Abronia latifolia). This research will focus on the possibility that the increasing variability in climate may be causing mismatches in pollinator flight periods and plant flowering periods, which may lessen plant reproductive success or pollinator survival.
A $5.000 grant was awarded to the Chileno Valley Newt Brigade to fund research by Haley Toups and Dr. Gary Bucciarelli, a professor at UC Davis, to identify the sex of mature newts as they cross Chileno Valley Road. The group will correlate sex with crossing conditions such as date, time and weather conditions. For four years the Chileno Valley Newt Brigade has been rescuing California newts from being run over as they attempt to cross Chileno Valley Road to spawn in the Laguna. As part of this grant Sonoma State Biology and Herpetology students will be trained how to identify newt sex, perform statistics, visualize data, and prepare a scientific journal.
The Tomales Bay Foundation funds annual research grants with the objective of increasing the scientific and public understanding of Tomales Bay and its watershed as it begins to experience climate change and sea level rise. The Tomales Bay Foundation is planning webinars in which the grant recipients can describe their research and their findings.
The Tomales Bay Foundation has funded 12 research projects on Tomales Bay in the past 2 years. The Foundation encourages contributions to its Student Research Grants Program. Please visit tomalesbayfoundation.org