A research scientist for the United States Geological Society who laid ground for land-use decisions and mentored biologists in the Point Reyes National Seashore has been honored by the National Park Service with an Excellence in Natural Resource Research award. Gary Fellers, who retired in 2013 but holds an emeritus position, may be best known regionally for his studies of western amphibians like the California red-legged frog, and of the decline of amphibians generally. At Point Reyes, he launched radio telemetry research of the red-legged frog, tracking how it uses the landscape. That project continues, under the supervision of U.S.G.S. ecologist Patrick Kleeman, in places like North and South Beaches, where the removal of dune grass and ice plant in recent years has allowed sands to shift. For Mr. Kleeman, Mr. Fellers carries the scientific spirit of another era. “Gary started off as an old-school naturalist, so he has a lot of knowledge over a broad base. Now a lot of people have a very narrow interest,” Mr. Kleeman said. In his years at Point Reyes, Mr. Fellers studied subjects as diverse as a rare bat colony and Point Reyes mountain beavers, a small population of ancient rodents that live under heavy brush and were decimated in the 1995 Mount Vision fire (they are still slowly coming back, Mr. Kleeman said). Sarah Allen, who worked with Mr. Fellers at the seashore, told the U.S.G.S. last year that the studies he published provide “a window into the most pressing resource management issues of the past three decades.” He was one of a few researchers that conducted studies at Point Reyes in the 1980s and early 1990s, she said, many of which were seminal and formed the foundation for subsequent work. Mr. Fellers investigated wind and water levels for the Giacomini Wetlands restoration, and in 2006 he published a study on the distribution and abundance of fallow deer rutting areas, research that laid the ground for the eradication of non-native deer. The six recipients of the natural resource awards were nominated by colleagues “for going above and beyond in the performance of their duties.”