Research

Areas of Interest

The historical materials on this site are available for use, with permission, by students and scholars in any field. We hope that by raising awareness of these materials, assisting in their preservation, and promoting strategic planning for the acquisition of additional materials, this site will support and help catalyze innovative teaching and research.

As for the UC Natural Reserve System History and Archive Project, we seek to use these materials to advance historical scholarship in the following four areas:

     (1) the role of field stations in shaping environmental science, policy, and management

     (2) the environmental histories of the UC reserves and their surrounding landscapes

     (3) the history of ideas about environmental change

     (4) the ecological effects of climate change in California

In this last area, we are working with a team of colleagues—including students, staff, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty from around the UC system—through the Institute for the Study of the Ecological and Evolutionary Climate Impacts.

Publications

Alagona, Peter S., and Tim Paulson. "From the Classroom to the Countryside: The University of California’s Natural Reserve System and the Role of Field Stations in American Academic Life." Invited paper for the Dumbarton Oaks series in Garden & Landscape Studies. Forthcoming volume entitled: Landscape and the Academy.

Alagona, Peter S., Andrew Esch, Tim Paulson, and Jessica Marter-Kenyon. “Population and Land Use.” In Erika Zavaleta and Harold Mooney, Eds. Ecosystems of California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016).

Alagona, Peter S. “Island Time: On the Stories We Tell About Nature and History.” Boom: A Journal of California 4:3 (Fall 2014), pp. 103-112.

Alagona, Peter S., Antonio Linares, Pablo Campos, and Lynn Huntsinger. “History and Recent Trends.” In Pablo Campos et al., Eds. Mediterranean Oak Woodland Working Landscapes, Landscape Series 16 (New York: Springer, 2013), pp. 25-60.

Alagona, Peter S. “The History of the UC Natural Reserve System.” In Peggy Fiedler et al., Eds. The Environmental Legacy of the UC Natural Reserve System (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), pp. 9-12.

Alagona, Peter S., and Clinton F. Smith. “Mirage in the Making.” Boom: A Journal of California 2:3 (2012), pp. 25-44.

Alagona, Peter S. “A Sanctuary for Science: The Hastings Natural History Reservation and the Origins of the University of California’s Natural Reserve System.” Journal of the History of Biology 45 (2012), pp. 651–680.