Sierra Streams Institute is engaged in research in all aspects of watershed science, in an effort to expand our understanding of how to protect and improve watershed health and to protect the health of the people who live in specific watersheds. We undertake studies, publish papers, present at conferences, and share data with universities and agencies.

Current Research Questions

• Which areas of Delta headwaters appear to have the greatest climate resilience, and which areas are most climate susceptible?
• How do we include indigenous values into a modeling framework, and does inclusion of these values into the state-and-transition model approach shift interpretation of what degraded or non-degraded states are?
• How can such an inclusion form the basis of an integrative framework for understanding and managing climate change impacts in Delta headwaters regions?
• How to dispose of masticated forest material? How long after treatment is the right time to burn masticated material? How does fuel type change this? Can treatment/machinery/techniques change to keep fire in mind as the end result?
• What are the effects of meadow broadcast burning on the local flora (invasive vs. native)?
• What does process-based versus form-based restoration mean for novel ecosystems? Or through community-based NGOs?
• What are the impacts of beaver dams and beaver dam analogs on ecological health of stream communities?
• How does vegetation respond following small scale dam removal?
• Are there diagnostic gametophyte characters in Timmiella anomala and T. crassinervis (Pottiaceae)?
• Which mosses occupy specific niches across a landscape gradient?
• What can the relationship between ash-free dry mass and chlorophyll across different methods tell us about stream health?
• How can we most accurately estimate flow in the Deer Creek Watershed?
• How does the Deer Creek Watershed change in response to rain events?
• How can we best share our work with the community through ArcGIS StoryMaps?
• Investigate beaver-related restoration enhancement

Current Research Projects

• Sierra foothills meadow vegetation response to controlled broadcast burning (Noack et al)
  • BYLT- Wildflower Ridge Early 2026
  • Yulica- cultural informed burning
  • NFA- burning The Meadow
  • Beale? Other burns?
  • Deadline: 2026
  • Alternative share-outs: Social Media, BYLT Newsletter, Signage, SciPub?, Library
• The response of vegetation and other management areas following small scale dam removal on Beale Air Force Base (Nova et al)
• Are there diagnostic gametophyte characters in California populations of Timmiella anomala and T. crassinervis (Pottiaceae)? (Lerch et al)
  • Journal: The Bryologist, Madroño
• The impact of higher taxonomic resolution in our benthic macroinvertebrate data on our interpretation of the impacts of flow and other variables (Herrmann et al)

• Finding a more humane BMI collection method (Valerio and Herrmann)
  • Journal: Perspectives article for the Journal of Freshwater Science or Journal of the North American Benthological Society
  • Deadline: April 2026
  • Alternative share-outs: Blog post, short-form Sci-Pub, Conference for Advancing Participatory Sciences

• Comparing BMI morphological IDs with metabarcoding in both alcohol preservative and creek water (Herbst et al)

• How can we most accurately estimate flow in the Deer Creek Watershed? (Herrmann et al)

• What can the relationship between ash-free dry mass and chlorophyll across different methods tell us about stream health? (Valerio and Grim et al)  
  • Deadline: April 2026 – research/analysis completed
  • Alternative share-outs: Ask Sam! Probably more generally about algae in creeks 

• The impact of rain events in the Deer Creek Watershed (Grim et al)
  • Deadline: This or next spring, depending on if we want to use logger data
  • Alternative share-outs: Blog post, part of a Sci-Pub

How can we best share SSI’s work with the community through ArcGIS StoryMaps?