Cover story: Silicon Valley’s hidden lands

Heading west on Sand Hill Road, past Silicon Valley’s venture capital row, past Interstate 280, before you come to Woodside, there’s a left turn with a nondescript gate near the entrance.

Go through the gate – if you’re lucky enough to have the passcode, that is – and you’re instantly transported into a world that seems far removed from Silicon Valley.

Tall meadows of browning grasses, shady creekside redwood groves and lush greenery characterize a few of the hidden lands of the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, a Stanford-owned, 1,200-acre nature trove that doubles as a living laboratory where scientists have worked for more than a century to make groundbreaking discoveries.

The Almanac recently got an exclusive tour of Jasper Ridge with the preserve’s executive director, Anthony Barnosky. The preserve serves three main purposes, he said: research, education and stewardship.

Research

Research conducted at Jasper Ridge has resulted in a number of groundbreaking scientific studies, Mr. Barnosky said. The large space largely isolated from humans has enabled researchers to study complex interactions between organisms within the bounds of a real ecosystem. According to the preserve’s faculty director, Elizabeth Hadly, the preserve’s rich archaeological history and other special features have been conserved while continuing to be used as a “living laboratory.”

Staff scientist Nona Chiariello emphasized that the preserve is home to diversity in species and in the types of research being done, including archaeology, bioengineering and geophysics.

One of the most famous studies to come out of Jasper Ridge is a paper by Peter Raven and Paul Ehrlich in 1964 which established the concept of coevolution, which presents the argument that certain plants and animals evolve in tandem with each other.

In addition, a decades-long project called the Global Change Experiment going on at Jasper Ridge has revealed some groundbreaking findings about how ecosystems might react to growing carbon dioxide levels in the environment, generated from burning fossil fuels.

Chris Field, lead researcher for the study, said in an interview that the study helped to make the case that an increase in carbon dioxide in the air will not lead to more plant growth – there had been previous speculation that rising carbon dioxide levels would increase plant growth and thereby negate the greenhouse gas’s global warming effect.

“It really helped refocus the attention of the world political community in dealing with CO2 emissions,” he said.

Stanford accepts study proposals from qualified scientists, including those not affiliated with the university, Ms. Chiariello said.

Education

As part of Stanford University, Jasper Ridge also has a strong educational focus, and courses there tend to emphasize hands-on learning.

In one course, students learn about field research by helping Stanford professor Tadashi Fukami study the interactions of microorganisms that are transferred between different pollinators and the sticky monkey flower.

In another class, special because a select number of non-Stanford affiliates are allowed, students learn from professors about the biology and natural history of the preserve.

In a lesson on bugs presented on a recent Thursday, students presented skits in costumes dressed as the insects found at the preserve. Colored cellophane strips were wings and plastic cups became compound eyes.

Afterward, they spent a sunny afternoon, pants tucked tight into their socks to keep ticks out, running through the tall meadows swooping up bugs into their nets and quantifying and classifying them. (All parties agreed: there were a lot of ticks.)

Students in the class ranged from ages 18 to 70, said course professor Cindy Wilber. Enrolled community members are expected to be docents once they complete the class. Vivian Neou, a Menlo Park resident who volunteers at the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, said she’d found the class highly informative.

Stewardship

Jasper Ridge has some rare features that its caretakers say merit its protection, even outside of scientific purposes. It is, Mr. Barnosky said, the last remaining 1,200 acres in Silicon Valley enclosed within the lower slopes of the eastern Santa Cruz Mountains.

The preserve is also home to a number of protected species, including the red-legged frog and steelhead trout, and contains serpentine grasslands, which means that it is known to have a rare rock called called serpentinite containing heavy metals that are toxic to all but the best-adapted native plants. It also has archaeological significance as a former site of the Ohlone people.

Global change is happening, and figuring out how to mitigate the negative impacts of those changes may mean thinking differently about how to protect the environment, Mr. Barnosky said.

A paper he and other scientists published in Science magazine in February argued that preserving ecosystems just as they have been in the past may no longer be possible. Instead, people should focus on maintaining the “functional integrity” of an ecosystem.

Research from the preserve indicates that ecosystems and their native species are profoundly interconnected. That makes Jasper Ridge all the more crucial an asset for scientists seeking to understand and preserve those connections.

Docent-led tours at Jasper Ridge end May 31 and resume in October.

Go to the Jasper Ridge website for more information.

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Related stories:

• A brief history of Jasper Ridge

• Dam troubles

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