Vol. 28, No. 4 Fall 2018 From the President’s Keyboard This time of year, I’m noticing more and more offspring off on their own. From a young bobcat making its way past my office last month, to the fall harvest, the young are making their own way in the world. I find the different life strategies fascinating—thousands of thistle seeds float by from an annual plant; a pair of young sister does bound across the road; a juvenile raccoon pops up from a culvert to check his surroundings; a coworker sends his daughter off to college; pale bentgrass shoots sprout from the edge of a patch. Some species invest their Mission Statement reproductive energy in making many offspring; others invest a great deal of energy in The mission of the California Native just a few offspring. Some plants can do both, like certain grasses: a single plant Grasslands Association is to promote, produces hundreds of thousands of tiny seeds from diminutive flowers throughout its preserve, and restore the diversity of life, but generally the successful stalks are daughter clones which sprout from the California’s native grasses and grassland rhizomes of a parent plant and take nourishment through the difficult juvenile time of ecosystems through education, advocacy, establishment. research, and stewardship. Being a species which invests a great deal in its offspring, we tend to value that strategy ________________________________ more, thinking it superior at least morally. What kind of parent would toss thousands of copies of itself into the harsh world with no guidance or care? But then, look at how P.O. Box 72405, Davis, CA 95617 many thistles there are! And how many goldfinches eating those seeds; fewer finches cnga.org than thistles, but still more finches than hawks, that feed on the finches and other small 530.902.6009 [email protected] birds. But those seeds, those young finches and hawks have sprung off (mostly) on their own now to succeed or fail; and by their success or failure feed others making their own CNGA Board of Directors way in the world. Officers People, though, often invest effort in non-biological reproduction: the formulation and Andrea Williams, President dispersal of ideas or care to help non-human animals, plants, other humans, living Jean-Phillippe “JP”Marié, Vice President systems...our cultures and society reflect the output of our separate or combined work. CNGA, its members and donors, make these efforts every day; during harvest season Jodie Sheffield, Secretary we hope to reap some of this generosity on Giving Tuesday and through member Jennifer Buck-Diaz, Treasurer renewals to disperse our ideas and care into the next season, and produce new ideas At-Large Directors through our new GRASS Grants program. Emily Allen Jaymee Marty Andrea Williams, President Christopher Gardner Felix Ratcliff Michele Hammond Patrick Reynolds Jim Hanson Jeffery Wilcox Richard King Kristina Wolf Don’t Forget to Vote! Billy Krimmel Alternate: Robert Evans The CNGA Board of Directors elections are coming up — online voting is open from December 1–20. Administrative Director Diana Jeffery On December 1, we will send out an email announcement to Grasslands Editor all members. You may then go to our website, cnga.org, sign Kristina Wolf in as a member, or create your account if you have not done so already. From the Members page, follow the link to “2019 For membership and other organization information, contact CNGA Elections” to read the candidate statements and access your Administrator via [email protected]. ballot. Grasslands is published quarterly by CNGA. If you have any questions, please email [email protected] or ©2018 CNGA ISSN No. 1540-6857 call 530.902.6009. Layout design: Julie St. John 1 | GRASSLANDS Fall 2018 In this issue 3 SNAPSHOT: Native Landscaping and Metapopulations 6 Monitoring Long-term Change in Coastal Prairies of the Marin Headlands 10 VISITING CALIFORNIA GRASSLANDS: Brushy Peak Regional Preserve 12 SPECIES SPOTLIGHT: Narrow Manna Grass 16 Explaining the Dispersed Spatial Pattern of Peritoma arborea var. globosa 22 GRASSLANDS RESEARCHER: Brianne Palmer 24 Explaining the Dispersed Spatial Pattern of Peritoma arborea var. globosa 25 Bunchgrass Circle 26 Grasslands Provide Resilience in a Changing World Save the date! 12th Annual CNGA Field Day Richard King’s at Hedgerow Farms: A View from the Field series will Think Globally, Plant Locally return in the next issue! Friday, April 26th, 2019 CNGA and Hedgerow Farms are partnering for Grasslands Submission Guidelines the twelfth year and you won’t want to miss this Send written submissions, as email attachments, remarkable opportunity for practical learning to [email protected]. All submissions are about California’s spectacular native grasslands. reviewed by the Grasslands Editorial Committee for suitability for publication. Written submissions p Hear about current research and practice include peer-reviewed research reports and non- regarding locally sourced plants and refereed articles, such as progress reports, observations, field notes, interviews, book reviews, ecotypes from expert speakers. and opinions. p Mingle and make connections with Also considered for publication are high-resolution colleagues in your field. color photographs. For each issue, the Editorial Committee votes on photos that will be featured p Enjoy hay ride and walking tours within on our full-color covers. Send photo submissions (at least 300 dpi resolution), as email attachments, incredible grassland habitats and native plant to Kristina Wolf at [email protected]. Include a production fields. caption and credited photographer’s name. Submission deadlines for articles: Watch www.cnga.org for more details and the Winter 2019: 15 Nov 2018 p Spring 2019: latest information on all our workshops and 15 Feb 2019 p Summer 2019: 15 May 2019 events. p Fall 2019: 15 Aug 2019 Fall 2018 GRASSLANDS | 2 SNAPSHOT: by Billy Krimmel1 Native Landscaping and Metapopulations: Thinking beyond the individual garden When we use native plants to landscape our gardens, we create habitat patches of habitat where death outpaces reproduction — these are for the myriad species of animals that depend on these plants for food, where species move to and die in greater numbers than their shelter, and other needs. To native fauna, native landscapes are beacons reproductive output. Sink populations reduce the resiliency of the of livable habitat amidst a bleak expanse of non-native plants and metapopulation. Colonization refers to a species initially occupying a pavement. So how do native birds, bees, and butterflies find our previously unoccupied patch (i.e., a monarch finds your patch of gardens in the first place? What happens when they leave? As milkweed, lays eggs and you have monarch larvae for the first time). individual native gardens flicker in and out of existence, what happens This type of thinking can apply both to the wildlife that move to the faunal species that occupy them? throughout patches, and also to the species of plants that comprise The Metapopulation Concept the patches. Their connectivity is important, because it allows more flow of genes between populations, reducing genetic isolation and the These questions all steer us to think about cities, suburban areas, rural long-term dangers that come with it (i.e., Husband and Barrett 1996), areas, and ‘wild’ areas as interconnected metapopulations of species. At its most basic, a metapopulation is a group of spatially separated continued next page populations that interact through dispersal and migration. The metapopulation concept arose in the biological sciences as a way to explain population dynamics of agricultural pests in a patchy environment by considering how habitat quality, population extinction, and patch colonization impact the pest population as a whole (Levin 1974). The concept is now applied widely (e.g., Hanski 1998, Hanski and Gaggiotti 2004) when thinking about the connectivity of interbreeding populations, from predicting species resilience in the face of disturbances like climate change (e.g., Opdam and Wascher 2004) to reintroducing endangered species to the wild (Akcakaya et al. 2006) and managing fisheries (e.g., Kritzer and Sale 2004). In landscaping, the concept of metapopulations guides us to design human-occupied areas in ways that support wildlife resilience by connecting patches of habitat to one another. The concept applies not only to thinking about how individual species persist and move through these patches, but also how connectivity affects genetic diversity of a given species (e.g., Pannell and Charlesworth 2000). Metapopulation theory uses the language of corridors, sources, sinks, death, extinction, reproduction, colonization, and migration. Corridors are strips of habitat that connect patches to one another. Exactly what a corridor requires for species movement depends upon the needs of the species and the limitations of the broader land use, but in general a corridor enables species to move between patches. Sources, or source populations, are patches of habitat where species reproduction is greater than death — these are where species move from. A source may be a wild area with lots of native species, or it could be a native garden where a particular species reproduces in such high numbers that its kin colonize other areas. Source populations increase the resilience of the metapopulation. Sinks, or sink populations, are 1Billy Krimmel holds a PhD in Ecology from UC Davis, serves on A mini-grassland of Festuca californica growing under a backyard CNGA’s board of directors and is the owner of Restoration coast live oak tree (Quercus agrifolia). Photo courtesy Bob Battagin, Landscaping Company in Sacramento. 27 August 2018, Woodacre, California 3 | GRASSLANDS Fall 2018 Native Landscaping and Metapopulations continued creating more resilient plant populations. This is particularly important as we face unprecedented changes to our climate that will demand genetic adaptation by species in order to deal with changing environmental conditions. Your Garden is Part of a Metapopulation Your native garden is a small patch of habitat for populations of native plants and animals.