Sponsored Projects for Undergraduate Research

The Karuk Agroecosystem Resilience Initiative aims to enhance the resilience of cultural agroecosystems under variable climatic conditions within the Karuk Aboriginal Territory in the Klamath River Basin of Northern California and Southern Oregon. Through integrated research and extension, we aim to 1) Assess the condition of cultural agroecosystems and component cultural foods and fibers to understand how land use, land management, and climate variables have resulted in agroecosystem resilience or vulnerabilities, 2) develop innovative decision making tools through community-based planning processes that can improve land management decision-making at the federal, state, tribal and community levels, and 3) build capacity of the Karuk Tribe through workshops and mentorship in research, analysis, mapping and visualization techniques to assess and manage for abundant cultural food and fiber resources and overall agroecosystem resilience beyond the grant. Internship positions will tie into integrated research and extension objectives, including the Agroecosystem Condition Assessments (ACA), an analysis of historical plant voucher specimens, efforts to expand the Karuk Tribe's herbarium collections and capability to measure and monitor changes in the distribution and abundance of cultural food and fiber plant species, and an assessment of the impacts of long-term ecological change, land-use/management and projected future climate scenarios on cultural foods and fibers and associated habitats.

Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Daniel Sarna-Wojcicki, Post-Doc