Western Riverside County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan (MSHCP) Biological Monitoring Program Rare Plant Survey Report 2007 19 March 2008 Rare Plant Survey Report 2007 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1 Survey Goals....................................................................................................................... 1 METHODS .................................................................................................................................... 2 Protocol Development ........................................................................................................ 2 Personnel and Training ....................................................................................................... 2 Survey Site Selection .......................................................................................................... 3 Survey Methods ..................................................................................................................6 Data Analysis...................................................................................................................... 6 RESULTS ...................................................................................................................................... 7 DISCUSSION .............................................................................................................................. 20 Recommendations for Future Surveys.............................................................................. 22 REFERENCES............................................................................................................................ 28 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1. List of species with sentinel site surveys, targeted surveys and/or found incidentally in 2007............................................................................................................. 4 Table 2. Sites surveyed in 2007 ..................................................................................................... 5 Table 3. Sentinel Site Survey Results for Covered Plants in 2007 ................................................ 9 Table 4. Survey effort and results for 2007.................................................................................. 11 Table 5. 2007 survey results and overall progress towards meeting Demonstrate Conservation objective for species surveyed for in 2007 ................................................. 13 Figure 1. Sites surveyed in 2007 for rare plant species ............................................................... 24 Figure 2a. Covered plant species detected during rare plant surveys in 2007............................. 25 Figure 2b. Covered plant species detected during rare plant surveys in 2007............................. 26 Western Riverside County MSHCP ii Biological Monitoring Program Rare Plant Survey Report 2007 Figure 2c. Covered plant species detected during rare plant surveys in 2007............................. 27 LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix A: Protocol for Inventory-Phase Rare Plant Surveys ................................................. 30 Appendix B: Rare Plant Survey Form ......................................................................................... 36 Appendix C: Rare Plant Sentinel Site Survey Form.................................................................... 39 Western Riverside County MSHCP iii Biological Monitoring Program Rare Plant Survey Report 2007 NOTE TO READER: This report is an account of survey activities undertaken by the Biological Monitoring Program for the Western Riverside County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan (MSHCP). The MSHCP was permitted in June 2004. The Biological Monitoring Program monitors the distribution and status of the 146 Covered Species within the Conservation Area to provide information to Permittees, land managers, the public, and the Wildlife Agencies (i.e., the California Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). Monitoring Program activities are guided by the MSHCP species objectives for each Covered Species, the information needs identified in MSHCP Section 5.3 or elsewhere in the document, and the information needs of the Permittees. While we have made every effort to accurately represent our data and results, it should be recognized that our database is still under development. Any reader wishing to make further use of the information or data provided in this report should contact the Monitoring Program to ensure that they have access to the best available or most current data. The primary preparer of this report was the 2007 Botany Program Lead, Diane Menuz. If there are any questions about the information provided in this report, please contact the Monitoring Program Administrator. If you have questions about the MSHCP, please contact the Executive Director of the Western Riverside County Regional Conservation Authority (RCA). For further information on the MSHCP and the RCA, go to www.wrc-rca.org. Contact Info: Executive Director Western Riverside County Regional Conservation Authority 4080 Lemon Street, 12th Floor P.O. Box 1667 Riverside, CA 92502-1667 Ph: (951) 955-9700 Western Riverside County MSHCP Monitoring Program Administrator c/o Karin Cleary-Rose 4500 Glenwood Drive, Bldg. C Riverside, CA 92501 Ph: (951) 782-4238 Western Riverside County MSHCP iv Biological Monitoring Program Rare Plant Survey Report 2007 INTRODUCTION There are 63 plant species Covered by the Western Riverside County MSHCP. While the MSHCP lists species-specific criteria to be met for each species, generally the species objectives require the inclusion of a certain number of occurrences of that species within the Conservation Area. The MSHCP requires that the distribution of Covered plant species is surveyed for at least once every 8 years. Some species also have an objective specifying minimum population sizes that must be conserved at each occurrence. Historic distribution information on the Covered plant species was consolidated for the MSHCP from a variety of sources including herbarium records, field notes, gray literature, and species databases. The current status of Covered Species at the recorded locations needs to be verified due to the varying sources, ages, and precision of the records. In order to ascertain whether species objectives are being met and to determine future long-term monitoring needs, the Monitoring Program plans to field verify historic records for each of the 63 Covered plant species during the first 5 years of the permit to determine their current status. At the end of this inventory stage, we will monitor verified occurrences of Covered plant species at least once every 8 years, as stipulated by the MSHCP, and continue to search for additional occurrences. The University of California, Riverside (UCR) Center for Conservation Biology (CCB), under a contract from the California Department of Fish and Game, conducted surveys for 27 Covered plant species in 2003 and 2004 (UC Riverside 2005). Monitoring Program biologists conducted surveys for 16 Covered plant species in 2005 and 32 species in 2006. In 2007, we monitored the phenology of 15 species at sites where they were documented the previous year to guide the timing of our searches for Covered plant species at other locations. We focused our efforts on 28 plant species and documented the presence of 5 additional Covered Species that we encountered incidentally. In this report, we are including the results from surveys for Quercus engelmannii (Engelmann oak) conducted in the fall and winter of 2006 because that data was not included in the 2006 annual rare plant survey report (henceforth, references to 2007 include 2006 Engelmann oak surveys). The goals for the 2007 rare plant survey were as follows: Survey Goals: A) Document the presence of Covered Species at historical locations in the Conservation Area. B) Investigate the utility of using sentinel site information to make decisions about where and for which species to survey. C) Collect information on site characteristics such as vegetation structure, dominant habitat, and site impacts at all surveyed areas of historical occupancy by Covered plant species. D) Collect species-specific information such as population size and threats to the species as well as habitat covariate information including ground and vegetation cover at locations where Covered Species are found. E) Continue to test and refine protocol for surveying historical locations for rare plant species. Western Riverside County MSHCP 1 Biological Monitoring Program Rare Plant Survey Report 2007 METHODS Protocol Development The protocol used for surveys in 2007 was modified from the Western Riverside County MSHCP Biological Monitoring Program Protocol for Inventory-Phase Rare Plant Surveys and Plot-Based Data Collection 2006, which was based largely on the California Native Plant Society Vegetation Rapid Assessment Protocol (CNPS Vegetation Committee 2004). We made several important modifications for 2007 surveys. First, while in 2006 habitat information such as phenology of vegetation, structure of vegetation layers and site disturbance was only collected when a Covered Species was found, in 2007 surveyors collected this information about the area they surveyed whether or not the targeted species was located. We hope this will allow comparison between sites