The saloon, the only place open serving coffee at 2 p.m., smells funky. Two drip coffees cost just a few bucks. It\u2019s February, not really tourist season, and tourists are usually brushed off in Bolinas anyway. We stopped here because we\u2019re lost.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re looking for a trail that leads to Pine Gulch Creek to meet with Michael Bogan, post-doctoral researcher<\/a> at the University of California, Berkeley. Before stomping outside, the woman looking for the vacuum had given us directions to the trail.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere is my fucking vacuum?\u201d she cries again. Do we look at her? Ignore her?<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a vacuum, in a box, that I\u2019m going to return. Who would do that?\u201d<\/p>\n Our short stay in Bolinas turns out to be the cultural highlight of a two-week stay in California. The reason is clear: the town lacks the bland uniformity of the rest of the region. And it\u2019s not just us who think so\u2014the residents know so. When the owners put Smiley\u2019s up for sale last year, an online article about the saloon caught people\u2019s attention with the tag line Help Keep Bolinas Weird And Buy This Legendary Bar. Residents regularly rebuff the developers and realtors who sniff around the offbeat town and ogle the multimillion-dollar potential of Smiley\u2019s and the quaint street it dominates. Part of Bolinas\u2019s beauty, however, is its lack of\u2014and desire for\u2014perfection. Or someone else\u2019s idea of perfection. It is perfect in its imperfections; what the Japanese would call wabi-sabi<\/em>. But this is not a story about Bolinas; it\u2019s a story about diversity and how important it is to value weirdness, differences, or the unexpected.<\/p>\n After leaving Smiley\u2019s, we meet the lanky, 38-year-old biologist at the Pine Gulch Creek trailhead. Bogan, his short, dark hair speckled with gray, sports the outdoorsy attire of most field biologists\u2014hiking boots, backpack, quick-dry pants, visor. He pauses to gather his thoughts before answering a question, is quick to smile, and is happy to share his knowledge of the natural world. Bogan also likes the offbeat and the unexpected, which is apparent in his choice of research: intermittent streams. As important as a flowing stream is, its opposite\u2014a dry stream bed studded with stagnant pools\u2014is just as vital. People tend to think of flowing, perennial streams as the normal state. But streams, particularly in drought-prone California, are more often intermittent, dynamic habitats that alternate between extreme conditions: wet and dry, movement and stillness. And, counterintuitively, in terms of biological diversity, it\u2019s the temporary waterways where the future may lie, where the unusual, the unique, the unexpected life forms flourish. As the climate changes, studying them, conserving them, and valuing them in their de facto state\u2014as ephemeral and dynamic\u2014is more important than ever. Intermittent streams are the Bolinases of California waterways.<\/p>\n About half an hour later, we\u2019re hiking along the trail toward Bolinas Lagoon, passing a birder in hot pursuit of a black vulture, a surprising arrival in Marin County when it was first spotted a couple of weeks ago. The bird is so rare that\u2014at this moment in time\u2014there have been only nine previous sightings in California, and the Marin observation is a first for the county. The species seems to be expanding north, likely in response to climate change.<\/p>\n Another surprise at the lagoon, Bogan tells us, is the coho salmon. After a 30-year absence, the migratory fish made a splashy reappearance in 2001. \u201cThat got the biologists pretty excited,\u201d Bogan says. The fish probably came from another river system, probably straying in their search for a suitable spot to spawn.<\/p>\n As we talk and walk, the sound of the creek grows louder. Pine Gulch Creek is very wet. And running high.<\/p>\n Michael Bogan studies intermittent streams at Henry W. Coe State Park in California. Photo by Jude Isabella<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cThis flow is from the past three days,\u201d Bogan says. It rained a week earlier, but this part of the creek, which flows into the lagoon and on to the Pacific Ocean, rarely dries up completely. A number of tributaries empty into the creek, and about 30 percent of them go dry for long periods.<\/p>\n The creek is one of Bogan\u2019s three study sites, which together represent a wet-to-dry gradient. This Marin County site is relatively wet. The second site, in Henry W. Coe State Park, about 50 kilometers south of San Jose, is relatively dry. The third\u2014the farthest south, about 300 kilometers away in Pinnacles National Park\u2014is the driest of all.<\/p>\n At each site, Bogan records water flow, measures abundance, and identifies fish, amphibian, reptile, and insect species. With their different water regimes, the three sites should feature different insect species. In cool water with lots of oxygen, Bogan will find mayflies, caddisflies, and stoneflies hugging the bottom of a stream, hooking their tiny claws into debris, rocks, and sediments. In standing pools\u2014refugia\u2014separated by sections of dry stream bed, he\u2019ll find beetles, giant water bugs, and other species capable of surviving in both running and stagnant water.<\/p>\n \u201cEssentially, these refugia become more important in times of drought\u2014it\u2019s the only place some species can survive during the dry season,\u201d he says, pointing out that, with worse droughts on the horizon, species that tolerate a parched habitat might have an advantage when it comes to survival. \u201cIt\u2019s a harsh environment, so you might see some novel adaptation, and that adaptation could become really important.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s basic evolutionary theory, but it\u2019s not an idea that California legislators ever considered as people crowded into the state over the course of the 20th century.<\/p>\n Raphael Mazor, a biologist with the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, focuses on identifying and assessing intermittent streams in southern California. He describes our knowledge of these episodic waterways as fuzzy at best: \u201cWe\u2019re getting a picture.\u201d<\/p>\n Overall, Mazor says, California is pretty arid, though its environment is complex, ranging between very wet and very dry regions. The state has focused on managing larger, perennial streams and rivers, perhaps working from the assumption that they are the only ones with an ecological function. But that\u2019s not true, says Mazor. Aside from the pools, where aquatic life\u2014free of invasive competitors\u2014survives, the dry riverbed itself may serve as a barrier against invasive species. Take the New Zealand mud snail, for example. This invasive snail, which is found in many Californian waterbodies, including Los Angeles\u2019s Malibu Creek, can completely cover a stream bed, reaching densities so high that they represent 95 percent of the biomass in a stream. Such a blanket of snails crowds out native invertebrates, disrupting the food chain. But the tributaries of Malibu Creek that run dry have no mud snails. These waterless riverbeds form lines of defense that help protect the larger ecosystem from an invasive species.<\/p>\n And Mazor points to another major water problem in California, one that is largely unknown outside of the scientific community: water flowing continuously where it\u2019s not supposed to.<\/p>\n \u201cIn southern California, our urbanized areas are extensively perennialized,\u201d Mazor says. Dams, groundwater pumping, and development in general have disrupted the natural ebb and flow of water in many areas. Yet to exist in a dry condition is typical for California streams and rivers, much like it is in other dry regions of the world, where riverbeds are more often accepted for their here today, gone tomorrow character. \u201cThe way we divide up the world is not the way biology divides up the world, and we need to be thinking about that,\u201d Mazor says.<\/p>\n Farther upstream from where Pine Gulch Creek empties into Bolinas Lagoon, we head to Bogan\u2019s monitoring site, hiking a kilometer uphill along a sunny, open trail\u2014skirting cow patties and swatting at the chorus of flies and bees serenading us\u2014until we cross into a giant faerie glen where oaks and redwoods shade a path. Sunlight streaks through gaps in the tree canopy and water trips over rocks and half-submerged branches, drowning out the sounds of our footsteps.<\/p>\n Bogan sets up his laptop next to the running stream. He wades through the water to retrieve a sensor from its waterproof case and then plugs the little device into his computer. A graph with jagged lines pops up on the screen, showing the stream flow over the past couple of months. The stream bed was completely dry from New Year\u2019s Eve, when Bogan set the sensor, until two days before our visit when a hard rain broke a six-week drought.<\/p>\n The scientist gets to work. He swaps out a battery and drops the sensor back into the case. Then he strings a tape measure along the creek for 30 meters and proceeds to dip his net into the stream every three meters, searching for life. He\u2019s looking for a vital and huge base of the food web: insect nymphs, larvae, and other invertebrates, a lattice of edible gems that support amphibians and fish.<\/p>\n
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