We're so pleased to share that first year graduate student Sean Stewart has been selected as the recipient of the 2021 Humboldt State University Alistair and Judith McCrone Graduate Fellowship Award. This award recognizes one outstanding graduate student each year  to acknowledge their potential and encourage their continued achievement in their graduate program. Congrats, Sean!

The Byrne lab is hiring! See the attached job announcement for a forest restoration field technician at Teakettle Experimental Forest in the Southern Sierra. Check back in March for additional summer research technician position(s).

Big congratulations to Sarah, who was recently awarded a fellowship to study differences in phenology among California poppies in a common garden study. We're so proud of you, Sarah!

Congratulations to Allison, who just found out her talk was accepted to the 2021 Society for Range Management annual meetings [virtual edition]. Allison's talk is titled "Drought alters soil seed bank composition within a sagebrush community: decreasing native forb seeds and increasing invasive grass seeds."

It was a great week in southeastern Oregon at the ORIDE drought net experiment. We can't wait to analyze the data. Thanks to the AMAZING field crew we finished sampling in record time (see photo below). What a team! Special thanks to graduate student Allison Nunes for organizing all the details and pulling it all off flawlessly!

​Special thanks also to Dr. Byrne's partner Jason (Dr. Yost) for taking time off of work to travel to Oregon during a pandemic with a 7 month old and 2.5 year old - and watching the kiddos while Dr. Byrne was gone for 10 hrs a day. Jason was instrumental in designing/building the drought shelters at ORIDE 5 years ago and has been "voluntold" to participate in Dr. Byrne's research projects for 13 years now! What a team! 
photo credit: Allison Nunes

It's never too young to involve your children in your research! Here is Dr. Byrne collecting poppy fruits with her 2.5 year old daughter for a new collaboration with researchers from UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, and HSU.

Congratulations to Allison, who was awarded a field research grant by the Native Plant Society of Oregon (NPSO) for her proposed study to investigate potential changes in the biocrust community at ORIDE after 4 years of drought!

Dr. Harold Zald (http://www2.humboldt.edu/fwr/faculty/detail/harold_zald) and Dr. Kerry Byrne (http://www.kmbyrne.net/) are seeking a highly motivated student interested in joining the Forest Measurements and Ecology Lab (http://zaldforestlab.weebly.com) to pursue an MS degree in Forestry and Wildland Resources at Humboldt State University (http://humboldt.edu/fwr/program/graduate_degrees).  The selected student will collect and analyze field and lab data to quantify mortality of large old-growth Sugar (Pinus lambertiana) and Jeffery (PInus jefferyi) pines in response to a large catchment scale prescribed fire scheduled for Fall 2020 in an old-growth mixed conifer forest in the southern Sierra Nevada of California.  The project will occur at Teakettle Experimental Forest (http://teakettle.ucdavis.edu/index.htm), a 1300 ha old-growth, mixed-conifer forest 80 km east of Fresno, CA in the southern Sierra Nevada.  Field duties will include performing a census of large pine trees within the watershed, collecting field observations on tree vigor and duff depth, collecting duff and soil cores for root analysis, and establishing an experiment to determine the efficacy of duff raking in mitigating large pine mortality. Laboratory work will include processing duff and soil core samples to quantify bulk density and root biomass.  Selected student must be able to work independently and in team settings, thrive in adverse field conditions, and be willing to camp for extended periods of time during the field season. The facilities at Teakettle are rustic due to the remote location of the station. The cabin has solar power, bathrooms, a kitchen and common space; individual will spend the summer sleeping in tents. The nearest town for supplies is Shaver Lake, CA, approximately a 1-hour drive from the field station. 
Minimum Qualifications:
Strong candidates for admission to the HSU Department of Forestry and Wildland Resources Graduate Program should have a grade point average of 3.0 or greater on a 4.0 scale for all college and university work, and GRE scores in the top 50th percentile (>152 Verbal, >153 Quantitative, >4 Writing).  Minimum qualifications include a BS degree completed no later than June 2020 in Forestry, Forest Ecology, Ecology, or related fields.  Additional minimum qualifications include:

• Undergraduate coursework in some combination of forest ecology, fire ecology, plant ecology, and soil science.
• Prior field work experience with either basic tree measurements or vegetation sampling
• Orienteering skills (navigation with map, compass, gps, and aerial photographs)
• Ability to navigate off trail and hike up to six miles per day in steep terrain
• Prior work or educational experience processing any type of soil or biological samples in a laboratory setting
• Competent using Microsoft Word and Excel
• Possess a valid US driver’s license

Preferred Qualifications:

• Prior field experience in conifer forests of California,  the Pacific Northwest, or Rocky Mountains
• Experience collecting data using a mapping or survey grade GPS
• Undergraduate coursework in GIS and remote sensing
• Undergraduate coursework in statistics using either R or Python software

Assistantship Benefits
MS student will be hired as a full time field research assistant beginning in June 2020 at $17.46/hr.  During the academic year, the student will have a salary of $17.46/hr for up to 20 works per week. The project has funding for at least 2 years, with the second year of funding conditional on satisfactory student academic standing and project progress.  Additional funding opportunities may exist to teach lab sections of Forest Measurements and Forest Restoration classes taught by Dr. Zald. MS student will supervise at least one undergraduate field and lab assistant supporting field data collection and laboratory sample processing.
How to Apply
Applicants are being considered to begin field work in June 2020 and enroll in graduate school fall semester of 2020.  To apply, send the following (as a single PDF document) to Dr. Harold Zald (hsz16@humboldt.edu) and Dr. Kerry Byrne (kb33@humboldt.edu):

1. A letter of interest (clearly stating your research interests and background).
2. CV (including GPA, GRE scores, prior relevant work experience).
3. The names and contact information for three academic and/or professional references

Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until a suitable candidate is selected for the position.  After initial screening, a selected applicant will be asked to submit a formal application for graduate school at HSU through CSUMentor (http://www.csumentor.edu/admissionapp/grad_apply.asp).  Women and applicants from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds are especially encouraged to apply.  We also encourage applications from residents of California and member States of the Western Regional Graduate Program (http://wiche.edu/wrgp), who all qualify for out of state tuition waivers. Residents of California may be eligible for the State University Grant (https://www2.calstate.edu/attend/paying-for-college/financial-aid/types/Pages/state-university-grant-program.aspx) to pay for tuition if they submit their FAFSA by March 2. 
Students who do not have a previous degree in forestry are eligible for admission to the Department of Forestry and Wildland Resources graduate program.  However, students who are admitted may be required to take prerequisite undergraduate forestry courses (e.g. forest mensuration, silviculture, etc.)
Contact Information:
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the application process, please contact Harold Zald at hsz16@humboldt.edu
Link to Teakettle Website:
http://www.hurteaulab.org/teakettle-experiment.html

Welcome to the world, baby Cora! She's already fitting in at HSU with her tie-dye shirt.

The Byrne lab has been busy this fall with 2 new seedbank germination studies. See a few photos below of Allison and Sarah transplanting some of their germinated seedlings for future identification (part of the ORIDE project), and Sean taking photos of his samples for his senior Capstone (soils from Lanphere Dunes).