Facilities Improvement at Hastings Natural History Reservation

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This award provides support for construction of new housing at the Hastings Reserve, a field station located in a remote area at the upper end of the Carmel River Valley. The award will permit replacement of a 75 year-old house in poor condition with a modular unit able to house 6 to 8 individuals. Since its beginning in 1937, resident and visiting researchers at Hastings have made significant contributions to basic understanding of animal social organization and of long-term patterns of ecological change. Many of the 500 publications resulting from research at Hastings come from long-term studies conducted by researchers living at the station or making a series of repeated visits over a long term. Station use is now at the level of well over 6,000 user-days by over 300 individuals, two-thirds of whom are students. This represents a doubling of the number of users in the last 10 years. The resulting demand for housing has caused some recent requests to initiate long-term projects to be denied. In addition to its contribution to basic understanding, research on the social organization of animals at Hastings has been featured in public education films produced by the BBC, National Geographic, and the Discovery Channel. Research at Hastings on native oak woodlands provided the original impetus for current efforts to protect oak woodlands as valuable resources for the public. Hastings supports the local K-12 school district through outreach and collaborations with teachers and, in addition, provides a primary site for a NSF-funded GK-12 program aimed at urban students.