[Bristol-Birds] O'Bryan to join team at Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station.

  • From: "Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "Bristol-birds" <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:43:53 -0400

Chris O'Bryan, a Bristol Bird Club student member for
near 10 years, has been selected as a Student Amphibian 
Field Technician working with the U.S. Forest Service this 
summer.  Chris will work in the Sierra Nevada Mountains 
at the Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station.  

He will assist with a 
study investigating 
potential livestock 
grazing effects on 
Yosemite toads 
(Bufo canorus) and 
other amphibians 
in the Sierra Nevada 
Mountains. 

He was in Northeast 
Tennessee the past 
few days after
having stopped off 
on return from the 2010 
Association of 
Southeastern Biologists 
meeting in Asheville, NC.  
He had dinner with biologists 
and friends in Johnson City.


The Yosemite toad is 
found at elevations 
ranging from 6,500 to 11,500 feet. Some of his survey sites 
are remote, and he will be making overnight backpacking 
trips up to 8-days in duration. This is a great opportunity 
for him to further his field surveying experience and job 
training skills in ecological research.

He will be headquartered just off I-80 west of Sacramento 
CA at Davis. Chris will live at Shaver Lake, CA and 
collecting habitat data, hiking, and camping the Sierra 
Nevada Mountains. Survey meadows are located in Sierra 
and Stanislaus National Forests and Yosemite National Park. 

This is a national program that fosters cooperation between 
universities and federal agencies; in this case the Pacific 
Southwest Research Station, Region 5, of the Forest Service, 
the University of California Davis and the University  of 
California Berkeley. The purpose of the study is to determine 
the effects of livestock grazing on Yosemite Toads, Bufo canorus, 
and their habitat. It is being funded by the Region 5 Forest Service.

The research station represent the research and development 
branch of the Forest Service in the states of California and 
Hawaii and the U.S. affiliated Pacific Islands. The station has 
served for more than 75 years on the leading edge of natural 
resource research, technology development, and applications. 

Research on the Yosemite toad is especially important because 
they are characterized as a California State species of concern, 
a Forest Service sensitive species, and a Federal endangered
species candidate. The suspected link between Yosemite toad 
decline and livestock grazing led to changes in forest.

Chris is a Presidential Research Scholar and an Undergraduate 
Research Assistant in the Department of Biology Center of 
Excellence for Field Biology at Austin Peay State University.

He grew up in Shady Valley, TN and his parents live in Piney
Flats, TN in Sullivan County.

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