The establishment of a long-term statewide climate and biodiversity monitoring network is crucial to the successful implementation of Governor Newsom's Nature-Based Solutions Executive Order N-82-20 which is commonly referred to as the 30x30 initiative. As a result of this executive order, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is working with several partners to establish a Climate-Biodiversity Sentinel Site Network to monitor ecosystems and wildlife throughout California. CDFW has established 39 sentinel sites on select Wildlife Areas and Ecological Reserves across the state. The network will conduct annual biodiversity inventories, real-time climate monitoring, and migratory species tracking via Motus. Resulting data is processed using automated and machine learning tools. The intention of the data is two-fold with (1) to be a resource for land managers to make informed management decisions in light of climate change and its impact on biodiversity and (2) to be a transparent and inclusive open-source data set for public use. This presentation will discuss the results of data collected during the 2023 field season, some preliminary results of the 2024 field season, and future directions for the network.  

Jim Stilley AND Nicole Cornelius will present this paper.

Nicole Cornelius joined the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in 2018 and began working on the Sentinel Site Network project in January 2023. Nicole received a Master's of Science degree in Biological Sciences from Sonoma State University in 2017 and a Bachelor's of Science degree in Biological Sciences from Sacramento State in 2012. Nicole enjoys traveling, reading and exploring California's beautiful outdoors.

Jim Stilley joined the Sentinel Site Network in June 2024 and has been working for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife since February 2023.  In 2019, he graduated with MS Agricultural, Environmental, and Sustainability Sciences degree from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and in 2014, with a BS Biology in the Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation track from the University of Hawaii Hilo.  He has 14 years of fieldwork experience and has worked on ecological projects in 9 US states.  He has a passion for assisting in the development and implementation of landscape scaled biodiversity monitoring and conservation.