Quail Ridge Reserve

Just 45 minutes from the UC Davis campus, the Quail Ridge Reserve protects over 2,500 acres of Coast Range habitat for research, teaching and outreach. A hilltop field station provides a scenic base for classes, meetings and meals, and diverse overnight housing options are available to academic users.

Located on a precipitous peninsula in one of the driest parts of the northern Coast Ranges, the Quail Ridge Reserve projects into Lake Berryessa and provides outstanding remnants of native grassland, savanna, and oak woodland habitats, extensive chaparral, and several small ponds. The reserve has become an innovative resource for cross-disciplinary research and instruction, including studies on wireless networks and automated animal tracking.

The 2020 LNU Lightning Complex fire burned the entire understory of the reserve. Fire intensity varied across the landscape and different habitats, resulting in a suite of regeneration timelines.The reserve is a unique partnership between the University and the Bureau of Land Management, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Land Trust of Napa County.

Year Founded
2000
Year Joined OBFS
2023
Size of Field Station (hectares)
1001-2500
FSML Web Address
https://naturalreserves.ucdavis.edu/quail-ridge-reserve

Private nonprofit organization?
No
Universities affiliated / Parent Organization
University of California, Davis
Federal, state, or local governmental partners?
Other: USDI BLM, BOR, CDFW
Member of the Virtual Field
No

Additional Information

Private nonprofit organization?
Names of Universities affilated
0
Federal, state, or local governmental partners?
Other
Name of partner
Tribal partners/users
No
MSI/HBCU users
No
Community College users
Yes
Member of the Virtual Field
No

Visiting a FS/ML

Open to the Public
No
Year round staff
1-2
Seasonal staff
0
Overnight housing facilities/# of beds
21-50
Distance to emergency services
41-60 minutes
Library
No
Hiking trails
No
Internship employment
No

Environmental Information

Biomes
Temperate Grassland and Temperate Woodland and Shrubland
Minimum Elevation
101-300 meters
Maximum Elevation
301-750 meters
Köppen climate classification
C (temperate)
Freshwater habitats
Yes
Urban or rural
Agricultural fields
No

Research

REU host station
No
Dry lab space
No
Wet Lab space
No
Research vessels available
No
GIS capacity on site
No
Long term data sets
Yes
On site herbarium or voucher species
Formal Data Management Plan
No
Mesocosms, plots, stream diversions, or other sets ups for outdoor manipulative experiments
Yes
Date Joined OBFS
March 21, 2024