Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration

The Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration is a University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) campus facility dedicated to education, research, and outreach.

Mission statement

The mission of the Vernon and Mary Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration (CCBER) at UCSB is to support:

Education
Research
Collections Management
Ecosystem Management, Restoration and Conservation
K-12 Academic Preparation and Community Education Program (Kids in Nature)
Public Service and Professional Advising

CCBER promotes the teaching of diverse undergraduate courses in the departments of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology (EEMB); Environmental Studies, and Earth Science. It also supports faculty, staff, and student research interests by providing field and lab-based resources. In addition, CCBER houses regionally focused collections of terrestrial plants, algae, and vertebrates, as well as an extensive plant anatomy collection. The Center satisfies the University's obligation to provide stewardship of campus lands, rich in biodiversity. Through the ecological restoration program, the Center encourages land restoration on and near campus. The Kids in Nature outreach program fulfills K-12 educational goals, while staff and faculty curators provide scientific information and advice to private entities. The union of these elements into CCBER creates a campus facility dedicated to education, research, and outreach related to regional biological diversity and restoration.

Collections

History and Introduction to Collections

Founded in 1945, CCBER houses over 350,000 botanical and zoological specimens. For over 60 years these valuable collections have contributed to the research and educational missions of UCSB.

Importance of Collections

Natural history collections and collection-based research are vital to discovering, understanding, and documenting biodiversity and to informing public policy on such issues as invasive species, climate change, evolution, and emerging public health threats. Natural history collections represent the irreplaceable documentation of life on Earth.

Access to Collections

CCBER's collections are available for use by university faculty, researchers, staff, and students as well as community members, including biological consultants, governmental agencies, K-12 educators and their students.

Ecosystem Management

CCBER manages over 238 acres (0.96 km²) of open space on UCSB campus in order to fulfill several mutually supportive goals:

To preserve native plant resources and biodiversity of the region
Provide educational opportunities through signs, intern program seminars and workshops
Advance understanding of restoration strategies and preservation of ecological function in urbanized areas to retain water quality, biodiversity through research.

CCBER management areas include areas that already contained portions of intact native vegetation or wetlands which are protected by the Clean Water Act and Coastal Act, as well as areas that are being restored after significant human impacts: the North Bluff, Campus Lagoon, Manzanita Village, Storke Wetlands and San Clemente.

Education

The Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration promotes the teaching of diverse undergraduate courses in Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, Environmental Studies, and Geology and graduate courses in the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. It also supports faculty, staff, and student research interests by providing valuable resources such as research collections and natural areas for scientific study. CCBER satisfies the University’s obligation to provide stewardship of campus lands, rich in biodiversity, and the ecological restoration program encourages land restoration on the campus. Through outreach programs such as Kids in Nature and taxon-focused workshops, CCBER fulfills the K-12 and community educational goals, while staff and faculty curators collaborate to provide scientific information and advice to private entities and other academic institutions.

Programs include

Internship Program
Restoration Seminar
Kids In Nature
Tours
Workshops
Classes

Archives and Manuscripts

The Cheadle Center owns and houses a number of historically important archival collections covering such areas as plant anatomy, oak systematics, plant ecology, marine biology and vertebrate zoology. The collections were created and donated by faculty founders of the former Museum of Systematics and Ecology and subsequent contributors to the botanical and zoological collections. Types of materials in these collections include correspondence, photographs, drawings, field notebooks, scrapbooks, and research notes.

C.H. Muller Library

The C. H. Muller Library currently houses over 2,300 volumes of books, government publications, and technical reports, a large reprint collection, archive and manuscript collections, and maps. It serves as a significant source of information for faculty, staff, students and the community. The library is open to the public during regular university hours (Monday-Friday, 8-5 pm). Books may be checked out for a period of three weeks. Collections of note include:

Legal Notes

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