Technical Presentation Abstracts by Session
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TECHNICAL PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS BY SESSION RARE PLANTS This session focuses on research, management, and conservation of California’s rare plants. The session includes a panel discussion focused on conserving cryptic species in light of the increased recognition of plants that are difficult or impossible to identify solely on the basis of morphology. It also includes a subsession on new rare plant discoveries in California. 1.01 The conservation of California's rare, threatened, and endangered plant taxa requires more information about occupied sites than we currently have John Hunter WSP, Sacramento, CA, USA I used the California Natural Diversity Database (CNDDB), California Protected Areas Database, and California Conservation Easement Database to evaluate the extent of the current protection, management, and conservation needs of California Rare Plant Rank 1B taxa. Because there are more than 1,050 1B taxa, presumed extant at nearly 28,000 documented sites (occurrences), preserving, monitoring, and managing them everywhere they grow would be a large effort. In fact, 42 percent have not been observed in 20 years, need say formally monitored and only 66 percent of occurrences have specifically documented locations (i.e., CNDDB Accuracy Class 1 and 2). Combined, specific occurrences occupy roughly 600,000 acres: 41 percent privately owned, unpreserved land, 59 percent land under conservation easement or publicly owned (little of which is managed to benefit 1B plants). Current management, regulatory, and preservation efforts are insufficient to conserve all this land. Obtaining the required billions in additional funding is unlikely. However, a taxon's needs differ dramatically: 377 taxa have <10 percent and 126 taxa >90 percent of their documented acreage unprotected on private lands. Also, at only some public sites are actions needed. Thus, opportunity exists to target actions where most needed to forestall extinctions. To implement such a strategic approach, we need more information on the continued existence, exact location, and site-specific stressors affecting a large portion of these rare plant populations. Moderate change or expansion of existing activities (revision of CNDDB forms, expansion of rare plant treasure hunts) and new activities (land manager surveys) are necessary to meet this need. 1.02 There’s no place like home: Five endemic plants from southern California and the soils they love Spring Strahm, Patricia Gordon-Reedy, Jessie Vinje Conservation Biology Institute, San Diego, CA, USA The California Floristic Province is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world and home to a large number of endemic plant species. The high degree of endemism is attributable to a diversity of climatic, topographic, and edaphic conditions creating unique microcosms for species specialization. Unfortunately, many of these microcosms have been lost to urbanization and populations of edaphic endemic plants have been isolated by habitat fragmentation and loss of pollinators. In addition, specialists are extinction-prone and vulnerable to climate change. Land managers need more specific information about habitat requirements to successfully conserve these species. This study focuses on soil chemistry and physical properties of five edaphic endemic plants in San Diego County including two clay-endemic species: Deinandra conjugens (Asteraceae) and Brodiaea filifolia (Themidaceae), two species restricted to gabbroic soils: Nolina interrata (Ruscaceae), and Tetracoccus dioicus (Picrodendraceae), and Acanthomintha ilicifolia (Lamiaceae), which occurs on clay and gabbroic soils. We used a spatially matched design to compare occupied and unoccupied soils. Results indicate that each species is associated with a unique suite of physical and chemical soil conditions that vary over a fine spatial scale. This information can help prioritize areas for management activities. It also improves our ability to identify suitable but unoccupied habitat for population expansion and translocation efforts within the species' current range and under shifting climactic conditions. 1.03 Natural history and distribution of woolly mountain parsley, Oreonana vestita Jane Tirrell San Gabriel Mountains Chapter, California Native Plant Society, Pasadena, CA, USA PAGE 1 of 103 | CONFERENCE.CNPS.ORG TECHNICAL PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS BY SESSION A study of woolly mountain parsley, Oreonana vestita (Apiaceae), California Rare Plant Rank 1B.3, may yield information on how these plants adapt to climate change. O. vestita occurs primarily on ridges and summits that are intermittently covered with snow during the winter and spring. A changing climate may result in more rain and less snow. Although there are several occurrences of O. vestita in the San Bernardino and Scodie Mountians, this study focuses on plants in the San Gabriel Mountains. Occurrences were mapped and compared with those known from the California Natural Diversity Database and CalFlora, and from vouchers included the Consortium of California Herbaria. New occurrences were noted as well as reported locations where the plants were not found. O. vestita habitats were compared to the type location, the summit of Mount San Antonio, with respect to soil type, elevation, slope, aspect, plant associates and flower color. In addition, two study sites, accessible year-round, were visited at regular intervals to observe O. vestita phenology. Phenology plots were constructed and compared over several drought years and one non-drought year. The plants exhibit an earlier, shorter growing season during drought years that may leave them with lower reserves over time. At present, O. vestita populations appear robust; they have withstood five years of drought and increasing human encroachment. A map of O. vestita occurrences and detailed information about its habitats and phenology can provide a baseline for comparison of the distribution and adaptation of these plants over the coming decades. 1.04 Ecological niche modelling of Ivesia webberi in Nevada and California Temitope Borokini, Peter Weisberg, Thomas Dilts University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV, USA Statistical algorithms are used to develop ecological niche models for predicting distributions focal species, for applied management, or to develop hypotheses for further empirical research. In this study, three algorithms-random forest (RF), generalized linear (GLM) and additive (GAM) models-were used to fit distribution models for Ivesia webberi (Rosaceae), a federally listed rare and threatened species in the western Great Basin Desert, using both presence and true absence points. We compared modeling approaches using linear (GLM) and non-linear (RF, GAM) relationships among predictor and response variables. Selected predictors for the study included 30-year (1981-2010) monthly temperature and precipitation data, digital elevation model (DEM), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), solar radiation, soil classes, land cover classes, cover of bare ground, and a species distribution layer for Artemisia arbuscula (Asteraceae), a species known to broadly co-occur with, and hypothesized to have facilitative effect on I. webberi. Best models were selected using area under curve of the receiver's operating characteristics plot, Cohen's Kappa, sensitivity, specificity and true statistic skill. The results show that models fitted with NDVI performed significantly better and explained the highest deviance, compared to models without it. Overall, RF-fitted models indicated that winter temperature, DEM and NDVI were the most important variables for fitting niche models of I. webberi accurately. Comparatively, RF and GAM performed better than GLM, but models fitted using RF and GAM were not significantly different. The relative importance of NDVI in these models shows that vegetative community productivity is crucial in predicting the distribution of I. webberi. 1.05 Introduction and reintroduction as an aid to species recovery Carol W. Witham Witham Consulting, Sacramento, CA, USA Members of the Orcuttieae tribe (Poaceae) are entirely endemic to vernal pools of the California Floristic Province. Both prior and subsequent to their listing under the California and federal Endangered Species Acts in the 1990s, numerous individual populations of these rare grasses have been extirpated through habitat conversion and other factors. As California continues to expand both its urban centers and its agricultural base, the vernal pool habitat that supports these and other species is becoming highly fragmented thereby reducing the chances of natural (re-)colonization. In 2014 and 2016, Sacramento Orcutt grass (Orcuttia viscida) was planted into unoccupied suitable habitat within its natural range. These out-plantings were intended to compensate for unregulated losses that occurred prior to listing. In 2015, Solano grass (Tuctoria mucronata) was replanted into Olcott Lake, its type locality. This population was probably extirpated due to stochastic events following overzealous herbarium specimen collecting. The plantings consisted of simply scattering seed collected from nearby donor sites. Both the donor sites and the newly established populations are being monitored annually for special distribution, population size and plant vigor. Since the initial plantings, the rare grasses have occurred in the recipient vernal pools every year and the new populations appear to be relatively stable. For both species, these recently established populations will serve as a buffer against