Final Performance Report California Department of Fish and Game 1. State: California Grant number: E-2-P-23 Grant name: 2003 Threatened and Endangered Plants Project number and name: EP03-7: Development of Howell’s spineflower (Chorizanthe howellii) habitat restoration and recovery strategy involving iceplant removal, MacKerricher State Park, Mendocino County, CA 2. Report Period: July 1, 2006 to March 31, 2007 Report due date: May 17, 2007 Report received by USFWS date_______ 3. Location of work (Include the county; if statewide don’t list districts and counties; coordination activities can be listed as the office location): MacKerricher State Park, Mendocino County, CA 4. Costs: Please identify sources of federal and no-federal match and indicate amounts budgeted and spend for each. Indicate if match is in-kind. Indicate in the table whether costs are “Actual” or “Estimated”. Fund source Budgeted Actual Amount Spent Federal: USFWS 29,000 State: California Other:_________ Other:_________ Total Federal: 29,000 Total Match: 9,667 Total Project: 33,773 5. Objectives: (list project objectives from grant proposal or grant agreement): Conduct historical research on iceplant distribution and growth rate within the park. Map current distribution of iceplant; enter into GIS layer and overlay on spineflower distribution; select 20 or more potential iceplant removal sites representing varying distances from spineflower colonies and environmental conditions. Complete Section 106 NHPA clearance for removal sites. Establish permanent monitoring plots and conduct initial photodocumentation and monitoring, to include characterization of soils, physical factors, species composition and structure both within and surrounding the removal areas. Conduct manual removal of iceplant. Conduct post removal annual monitoring for 3 field seasons to document reoccupation of removal areas. Summarize results in report, and make recommendations regarding utilization of iceplant removal in long term management of spineflower. 6. If the work in this grant was part of a larger undertaking with other components and funding, present a brief overview of the larger activity and the role of this project. n/a 7. Describe how the objectives were met. See attachment 1 for additional requirements. Please see attached report 8. Discuss differences between work anticipated in grant proposal and grant agreement, and that actually carried out with Federal Aid grant funds; include differences between expected and actual costs. n/a 9. List any publications or in-house reports resulting from this work. Provide citations, including status (indicate if not completed), note any that are included with this report, and note where reports or publications may be obtained. None completed to date. Name, title, phone number, and e-mail address of person compiling this report: Mary Ann Showers Habitat Conservation Planning Branch [email protected] 916-651-6594 Development of a Restoration Strategy for Howell’s Spineflower MacKerricher State Park Progress Report May 2007 by Peter J. Warner Environmental Scientist California State Parks Mendocino District Project Update (May 2007) Since the 2006 report, the only project activity has involved plot maintenance (removal of scattered iceplant seedlings) and the production and presentation of the project and pertinent data to a State Parks resources training in January 2007. Introduction This report summarizes the results of a study intended to provide data in support of the development of a strategy for the recolonization of suitable habitat by Howell’s spineflower (Chorizanthe howellii - ST/FE), an annual plant that grows almost entirely within MacKerricher State Park, north of Ft. Bragg, California. The study was funded by the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service under Section 6 Grant E-2-P-23, and administered by the California Dept. of Fish & Game under Contract number P0330013. The project has been implemented by the Calif. Dept. of Parks & Recreation, Mendocino District. As of October 2005, all grant funds had been expended. State Parks has continued funding the project for maintenance and data collection activities, and intends to continue doing so indefinitely. The report provides a methods section, study results, and a discussion section that interprets the data and provides an interim analysis of their significance. This section also includes a brief summary of strategic issues and management options. A project description, including discussions of the ecosystem, the plant community, Howell’s spineflower, and other details, developed prior to project implementation, provides introductory information and is appended to this report. Methods To address the potential for recolonization by Howell’s spineflower following a manual iceplant removal regimen, State Parks staff established twenty-five 50m2 plots, each within spineflower habitat and each with at least 50% iceplant cover, between Lake Cleone and the south end of the Ten Mile Dunes at MacKerricher State Park in winter 2004-05. We did not purposefully incorporate slope aspect or pitch as variables, although plot topography ranges from concave swale bottoms to convex dune tops, with most aspects either S- to SW- or N-facing. On each plot, we established five 1m2 quadrats, representing 10% of the total area of each plot, in a regular array (i.e., quadrats were not randomly situated, instead consistently located on all plots). Data collected prior to iceplant removal and once during each of the two following spring seasons included cover by plant species and other types of surface material (e.g., bare sand, 1 litter). Data were recorded in one of six categories for estimating cover on entire plots: Category 1 = 0-1; Cat. 2 = 1-5; Cat. 3 = 5-25; Cat. 4 = 25-50; Cat. 5 = 50-75; and Cat. 6 = 75-100%. We also estimated cover by plant species or other ground cover to the nearest 1% on each of the five quadrats on each plot. We estimated both cover category values on plots and percentage cover values on quadrats visually; on quadrats we used a 1m2 frame sectioned into 1/100m2 squares to assist in estimating cover to the nearest 1%. In addition, we counted the numbers of spineflower plants on quadrats, and estimated spineflower numbers on each 50m2 plot. Following the compilation of pre-treatment data, State Parks staff removed all iceplant by hand in January 2005. On even-numbered plots (n=12), we removed bulk organic litter in February 2005. This treatment was essentially a litter layer reduction; most plots retained a shallow (<1cm depth) litter layer after bulk removal. We left all plant litter (minus the just-removed iceplant remains) on odd-numbered plots (n=13). During data collection visits in May 2005 and June 2006, and during plot maintenance in January 2006, we removed all observed iceplant that had germinated or otherwise regrown onto plots. Photo-documentation We photographed all plots 1) prior to iceplant removal, 2) following the litter removal process, and during data compilation in 3) May 2005 and 4) June 2006. Each plot was photographed from just outside each plot corner looking diagonally across the plot, and labeled corresponding to the nearest cardinal direction for that corner and by month-year photographed. These photographs are available upon request. Statistical Compilation I compiled all data collected into an Excel spreadsheet, arranged by plots, quadrats, species, other ground cover types, and physical data (slope, exposure, etc.). Each observed plant species has been designated native or non-native; any taxon not identified to a level sufficient to determine native status were left out of computations. To date, I’ve attempted no statistical analyses other than computing simple means and proportions among species, and between groups, litter treatments, and years. Thus, all results shown below are based on raw data and basic spreadsheet computations. Cover category values are not quantitatively accurate, and are used generally to assess relative cover over multiple samples over a relatively broad area. These values were only employed on the 50m2 plots, not on the 1m2 quadrats. I’ve used computations derived from cover category values here mostly to illustrate general patterns of relative cover and species dominance; these data will not be used at this time for determining statistical significance of any treatments. Preliminary Results Iceplant cover dropped precipitously following initial removal: from an average cover category of 5.8 (out of maximum value of 6) and a mean cover on quadrats of 81.6%, prior to removal to an average cover category value of 0.9 on plots and 0.24% on quadrats in May 2005 (Photos 1, 2, and 3). In June of 2006, the average cover category value of iceplant cover was 0.84, and the cover on quadrats was 0.03%. Prior to iceplant removal (January 2005), we observed at least one spineflower plant on 7 of the 25 plots, with the spineflower cover on each of those 7 plots in category 1 (0-1%). By May 2005, this count had increased to 12 plots with spineflower (an estimated 369 plants in total), with 2 spineflower cover in category 2 (between 1 and 5%) on 3 plots (Photos 4, 5, and 6). In early June 2006, 21 plots had at least one spineflower plant; on 3 plots spineflower cover had increased to category 4 (over 25%); spineflower plants on many 50m2 plots had grown too numerous to count individually. On the 125 quadrats within those 25 plots, spineflower cover averaged virtually zero (less than 0.1%) prior to iceplant removal; the total number of plants was 54. By May 2005, spineflower cover on quadrats had increased to a mean of 0.24% with 108 plants accounting for that cover. In June 2006, spineflower cover had reached an average of 2.7% on quadrats by virtue of 758 plants counted. In May 2005, as measured on quadrats (n=60), spineflower cover on litter-removal plots averaged 0.4%, whereas on littered quadrats (n=65), the mean for this measure was 0.3%.