Ventura Marsh Milk-Vetch (Astragalus pycnostachyus var. lanosissimus) Species Status Assessment Photo credit: Ken Niessen September 2020 – Version 1 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Ventura, California Acknowledgements Core Team Todd Lemein, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ventura Fish and Wildlife Office, Ventura, CA Ken Niessen, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ventura Fish and Wildlife Office, Ventura, CA Cat Darst, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ventura Fish and Wildlife Office, Ventura, CA Bjorn Erickson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Pacific Southwest Regional Office, Sacramento, CA Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .......................................................................................................... 10 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Listing History ............................................................................................................. 1 1.2 State Listing ................................................................................................................. 1 1.3 Approach of the Species Status Assessment ............................................................... 1 2 SPECIES INFORMATION......................................................................................... 3 2.1 Nomenclature .............................................................................................................. 3 2.2 Description .................................................................................................................. 3 2.3 Distribution .................................................................................................................. 5 2.4 Habitat ......................................................................................................................... 9 2.5 Life History ............................................................................................................... 10 3 BIOLOGICAL NEEDS ............................................................................................. 12 3.1 Historical Evaluations ............................................................................................... 12 3.1.1 Wilken and Wardlaw (2001) ..................................................................................... 13 3.1.2 U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Critical Habitat Primary Constituent Elements (2004) ........................................................................................................................ 13 3.1.3 Meyer (2007) ............................................................................................................. 15 3.2 Life Stage ................................................................................................................... 15 3.2.1 Seed ........................................................................................................................... 15 3.2.2 Plant ........................................................................................................................... 16 3.3 Population Needs ....................................................................................................... 17 3.4 Species Needs ............................................................................................................ 17 3.5 Summary of Biological Needs ................................................................................... 18 4 SITE HISTORIES ..................................................................................................... 20 4.1 North Shore ............................................................................................................... 21 4.2 Coal Oil Point Reserve (COPR) ................................................................................ 22 4.2.1 Coal Oil Point Reserve Pond ..................................................................................... 23 4.2.2 Coal Oil Point Reserve Lagoon ................................................................................. 25 4.3 North Campus Open Space Restoration Site ............................................................. 27 4.4 Carpinteria Salt Marsh Reserve ................................................................................. 27 4.5 McGrath State Beach ................................................................................................. 29 4.6 McGrath Parcel .......................................................................................................... 31 4.7 Mandalay State Beach ............................................................................................... 32 4.8 Ormond Beach ........................................................................................................... 33 5 CURRENT DISTRIBUTION, ABUNDANCE, AND MANAGEMENT ................ 34 5.1 North Shore ............................................................................................................... 34 5.2 McGrath Parcel .......................................................................................................... 36 5.3 Carpinteria Salt Marsh ............................................................................................... 36 5.4 Coal Oil Point Pond ................................................................................................... 36 5.5 North Campus Open Space Restoration Site ............................................................. 36 5.6 McGrath State Beach ................................................................................................. 37 6 THREATS AND FACTORS INFLUENCING VIABILITY ................................... 37 6.1 Soil Remediation and Residential Development ....................................................... 37 6.2 Anthropogenic and Natural Stochastic Events .......................................................... 38 6.3 Alteration of Hydrology ............................................................................................ 38 6.4 Competition with Native and Non-native Plants ....................................................... 39 6.5 Herbivory ................................................................................................................... 39 6.6 Disease ....................................................................................................................... 40 6.7 Seed Predation ........................................................................................................... 40 6.8 Climate ...................................................................................................................... 41 6.9 Factors Influencing Viability ..................................................................................... 42 7 CURRENT CONDITION (RESILIENCY, REPRESENTATION, REDUNDANCY) 43 7.1 Resiliency .................................................................................................................. 44 7.2 Representation ........................................................................................................... 46 7.3 Redundancy ............................................................................................................... 47 8 FUTURE CONDITION ............................................................................................ 47 8.1 Land Use and Land management .............................................................................. 48 8.3 Climate Change ......................................................................................................... 49 8.3.1 Frequency and Amount of Precipitation.................................................................... 49 8.3.2 Average and Extreme Temperatures ......................................................................... 50 8.3.3 Shifts in Vegetation Communities............................................................................. 50 8.3.4 Sea Level Rise ........................................................................................................... 52 9 FUTURE SCENARIOS ............................................................................................ 53 9.1 Future Scenario 1 (Continuation) .............................................................................. 54 9.2 Future Scenario 2 (Increasing Management) ............................................................ 57 9.3 Future Scenario 3 (Declining Management) ............................................................. 60 10 OVERALL SYNTHESIS .......................................................................................... 63 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 67 List of Figures Figure 1. Astragalus pycnostachyus var. lanosissimus leaf and inflorescence. ............................. 4 Figure 2. 1896 Topographic map with the esimtaed extent of the “Ballona” occurrences. ........... 6 Figure 3. Distribution of historical, introduced, natural, and misidentified populations of Astragalus pycnostachyus var. lanosissimus. ................................................................................. 8 Figure 4. Life history diagram. .................................................................................................... 12 Figure 5. Designated critical habitat for Astragalus pycnostachyus var. lanosissimus. .............. 14 Figure 6. Locations of the North Shore