Chris Janousek

It’s always great to see endangered plants out in the field. We have a few endangered species at a few of our sites!

Three kayakers at high tide in a tidal slough near the Napa River.

A vegetation plot showing a square quadrat, tall vegetation, and a small chalk board with a plot name enscribed on it.

I can’t complain when this was my office for the day! We are conducting plant surveys for San Francisco Bay’s #WRMP (Wetland Regional Monitoring Program).

We saw whales off Point Reyes National Seashore this weekend!

Gorgeous!

Backlit leaves of crabapple with small developing fruits

Sitka spruce and shrubs in Poole Slough in the Yaquina Estuary, Oregon

Tidal swamps have freshwater and brackish-tolerant shrubs and trees, including Sitka Spruce, twinberry, willows, and crab apples in the Pacific Northwest.

Adding two data loggers into a groundwater well in a tidal marsh.

A red sign indicating “Butler Creek Farm” in the shape of a cow hangs from a pole over a fence.

This project is a partnership of OSU, Wild Salmon Center, the Institute for Applied Ecology, and local landowners. Yesterday we worked in the Umpqua Estuary with Butler Creek Farm.

A large tidal creek with emergent marsh to the right and tidal coniferous forest to the left.

Emergent marsh in the foreground and tidal forest behind it.

We are starting a new project on the Oregon coast to better understand the drivers of tidal swamp distribution - elevation, salinity and groundwater. These data will help inform #restoration of these carbon-rich but now rare #estuary ecosystems dominated by trees and shrubs.

Rocky coastline in Oregon with a seagull flying over dark rocks

Rocky intertidal with mussels, gooseneck barnacles, and golden sea palm kelps

A feathery red alga in a tidepool

Teal green giant anemones in a tidepool

It is a beautiful day on the central Oregon coast and we had a great low tide this morning! Featured creatures: sea palms, a red alga, and giant green anemones.

A wide tidal channel winds through tidal marsh on the central Oregon coast

A PVC pipe marks a groundwater monitoring station in a tidal swamp on the Oregon coast

Backlit leaves of crab apple in a forested tidal swamp on the Oregon coast

Today I was able to return to field work in Poole Slough, a lovely branch of the Yaquina Estuary in Oregon, after about a decade away. We set up channel and groundwater monitoring stations in tidal marsh and tidal swamp.

Fun to find a ton of moon jellies floating into the Coos Estuary last evening on a rising tide.

Helenium bigelovii, which apparently also ranges into Oregon. I’d love to see H. autumnale in a tidal wetland!

Blooms of Helenium - rounded yellow inflorescences

Several yellow sunflower like blooms of Grindelia, gumweed

Small purple flowers in a spiral around a flowering stalk

Several purple flowers, shaped like pompoms in marsh vegetation

I had a lovely field day this week in Suisun Marsh in the San Francisco #Estuary where a lot of marsh plants are still very much in bloom! - Helenium, Grindelia, Triglochin, and Trifolium pictured here

Sea Grant, a program of NOAA which funds coastal research, education, and community outreach - is unfortunately a target for the current administration's draconian reductions in science funding. Sign a letter of support for Sea Grant here: sga.seagrant.org/letters-of-s...

Beautiful photo of that species!

Yes pickleweed is native to the whole west coast of the US. I’ve seen it from San Diego marshlands to Washington!

A tidal benchmark on a bent metal rod protrudes out of a salt marsh

A corroded disk that was an old tidal benchmark

Eden Landing in South San Francisco Bay used to have a tidal station in the 1970s. I had been wondering where the tidal benchmarks might be. Found one 😂 #wrmp

A field data sheet showing some salt marsh plot data

A salt marsh vegetation plot dominated by pickleweed

That excitement when you find something new in the otherwise pickleweed (Salicornia pacifica) dominated marshes of San Francisco Bay!

A PVC square quadrat on a wooden outdoor table

I tripped at my field site yesterday and shattered my quadrat so I now have a new one ready for plant surveys. The simple field gear is often my favorite!

A square PVC plot frames a Pickleweed marsh

Two PVC posts and a square quadrant frame a tidal marsh vegetation plot in Suisun Bay

A cluster of golden flowers in the sunflower family at Suisun Marsh

A tidal creek winds through a salt marsh in Marin County California. The creek is almost devoid of water at low tide but the sediments are golden brown due to diatoms on their surface

Tidal marsh vegetation surveys for the new Wetlands Regional Monitoring Program (WRMP) in the San Francisco Estuary are well underway! These surveys at 17+ sites across the estuary will occupy much of my working time over the next few months. @sfestuaryinstitute.bsky.social

San Francisco

Show Your Stripes Visualising how the climate has changed for every country across the globe

Sacramento, California. showyourstripes.info/c/northameri...

We are also establishing accretion plots, collecting elevation data with RTK-GPS and measuring groundwater time series. The WRMP seeks to study the Bay’s tidal wetlands over the long term and is a partnership of SFEI, SFEP, UC Davis, OSU, USGS, SF NERR and others!

A square PVC quadrant in a salt marsh in San Francisco Bay

A field researcher looks ahead into a tidal slough while riding on a small boat

A square quadrant frames a vegetation plot with tall marsh sedges

Tall sedges rise at the edge of a tidal channel in a Napa River tidal marsh.

This week we collected the first standard transect vegetation data in SF Bay’s new Wetlands Regional Monitoring Program (WRMP)! Over the next few months we will survey 17+ sites from South Bay to Suisun Bay.

Interesting. This species can have such an interesting range of morphologies. In California some thalli have smooth and even wiry bladelets!

Soft birds beak flowers growing among salt marsh succulents

Bright pink five petals flowers of Zeltnera growing in brown grass

An inflorescence of purple pea flowers

I had a few days of field work in San Francisco Bay tidal marshes this week, and while my focus wasn’t plants, I came across several rare and unusual beauties: soft birds beak, Delta tule pea, and Zeltnera. #estuary #wrmp

Following

Pinnate leaves of a redwood branch showing lighter green leaves at the branch tips

New spring growth on coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens, at left and Dawn redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, at right from the #ucdavis arboretum.

Several purple and white flowers arrayed in a whorl around a herbaceous stem

Small lupine in grass with small blue flowers

Lush triangular light green fern frond

Small diamond-shaped fronds of ferns

Some flowers and ferns from a short #bioblitz at Fernandez Ranch, Martinez, Calif yesterday: Colllinsia, Lupinus, ?Dryopteris, Pentagramma.

Forested swamps on the Northwest coast are some of the biggest carbon storehouses around, new research finds A new study suggests that restoring tidal swamps along the Pacific Northwest coastline could provide the most bang for your carbon storage buck.

Oregon Public Broadcasting briefly covered our recent #bluecarbon research on the Pacific coast

www.opb.org/article/2025...

Clusters of sweet-smelling California lilac flowers

Single flower of light purple-white Iris

Several Trillium with three dark green leaves and single purple flowers

A dense cluster of purple and white lupines

Spring wildflowers at Pt Reyes Natl Seashore: Ceanothus, Iris, Trillium, and Lupinus.