As private land, the Santa Lucia Preserve provides an increasingly rare opportunity for science researchers—a location to conduct long-term studies free from outside disturbances. It also serves as a unique natural classroom/laboratory used by instructors and students within the Central Coast Region of California.

The Santa Lucia Conservancy collaborates with researchers from universities and other science-based organizations on research that not only benefits the resource management goals for the Santa Lucia Preserve, but our understanding of the greater natural world.

Some current and recent research projects include:

• Establishment of a permanent Plate Boundary Observatory that monitors earth quakes and other changes resulting from the movement of the Pacific and Continental Plates
• Watershed assessments for Williams and San Jose Creeks
• Behavioral studies of two species of garter snakes and their prey found on the Preserve
• Pathology of Sudden Oak Death
• Ecological relationships between perennial native wildflowers (saxifrage) and their moth pollinators