35 research outputs found
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Biotic homogenization of the California flora in urban and urbanizing regions
Biotic homogenization, driven by native species losses and invasive species gains was investigated for the flora of California. Data from a variety of available databases were aggregated at the county level to examine patterns in county population density and growth in relation to floristic change. Based on population, California was divided into three zones: high (n = 9; 257-1320 people/km2), medium (n = 25; 28-177 people/km2), and low (n = 24; 1-24 people/km2) density counties. Examining patterns of rare plant occurrences among these counties revealed that high and medium density counties contained, on average, as many or more rare and endemic species than low density counties. The largest pool of these species, 48 percent of the 962 highly threatened taxa in California, is restricted to high and medium density counties. Thus, urban and urbanizing counties play a strategic role in maintaining a part of California's flora that is both globally significant and threatened with extinction. Examining species losses and noxious weed additions across high density counties, reveals a consistent pattern of low similarity among species that have been extirpated from high density counties and a high similarity among noxious weeds that these counties now share. The consequence is that California's urban county floras appear to be homogenizing. Examining homogenization using the entire flora for urban counties demonstrates that less similar counties become more similar. The effect of loss of rare species could outweigh the gain in exotics, under an assumption of strong extinction. Finally, a strong negative relationship between population density and the proportion of county land in public ownership suggests that high and medium density counties are in a poor position to protect rare plant populations on a localized basis. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
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Spatial Patterns of Endemic Plants in California
California endemic vascular plant range patterns were quantified using a flora-based geodatabase technique that defined species range by geographic area and elevation band. Resulting species spatial patterns are reported for 228 geographic units. Over 60% of the endemic species range size distributions were found to have range sizes less than 10,000 km2. The largest endemic taxon range was 275,749 km2, or 67% of the state. California endemic plant richness distribution patterns are summarized by 228 geographic units, and reported by various criteria. California's Central Coast Ranges, Sierra Nevada foothills, high elevation Sierra Nevada Mountains, Channel Islands, San Jacinto Mountains, Napa and Lake Counties, Inyo Mountains, sections of the Mojave Desert, and San Bernardino Mountains were all identified as areas with unique endemic plant attributes. We compared endemic species richness between map units in zones containing similar topography and climate, and found that area only weakly correlated with species richness, suggesting other factors have stronger influence on endemism in continental California. The findings have implications for developing conservation plans that target endemic species. In particular, we identify areas of the state, previously de-emphasized, that deserve greater recognition based on the characteristics of their restricted endemic plants. This analysis underestimates the level of endemism near the borders with Oregon and Baja California because of the artificial limitation of the database to the boundaries of the state of California. However, range distribution estimates produced from digital renditions of floral keys proved effective in this study, an inexpensive approach that could be implemented in other regions of the world for which floras have been published
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Flood regime typology for floodplain ecosystem management as applied to the unregulated Cosumnes River of California, United States
Floods, with their inherent spatiotemporal variability, drive floodplain physical and ecological processes. This research identifies a flood regime typology and approach for flood regime characterization, using unsupervised cluster analysis of flood events defined by ecologically meaningful metrics, including magnitude, timing, duration, and rate of change as applied to the unregulated lowland alluvial Cosumnes River of California, United States. Flood events, isolated from the 107-year daily flow record, account for approximately two-thirds of the annual flow volume. Our analysis suggests six flood types best capture the range of flood event variability. Two types are distinguished primarily by high peak flows, another by later season timing and long duration, two by small magnitudes separated by timing, and the last by later peak flow within the flood event. The flood regime was also evaluated through inter- and intra-annual frequency of the identified flood types, their relationship to water year conditions, and their long-term trends. This revealed, for example, year-to-year variability in flood types, associations between wet years and high peak magnitude types and between dry years and the low magnitude, late season flood type, and increasing and decreasing contribution to total annual flow in the highest two peak magnitude classes, respectively. This research focuses needed attention on floodplains, flood hydrology, ecological implications, and the utility of extending flow regime classification typically used for environmental flow targets. The approach is broadly applicable and extensible to other systems, where findings can be used to understand physical processes, assess change, and improve management strategies
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Flood regime typology for floodplain ecosystem management as applied to the unregulated Cosumnes River of California, United States (vol 10, e1817, 2017)
Flood regime typology for floodplain ecosystem management as applied to the unregulated Cosumnes River of California, United States
Floods, with their inherent spatiotemporal variability, drive floodplain physical and ecological processes. This research identifies a flood regime typology and approach for flood regime characterization, using unsupervised cluster analysis of flood events defined by ecologically meaningful metrics, including magnitude, timing, duration, and rate of change as applied to the unregulated lowland alluvial Cosumnes River of California, United States. Flood events, isolated from the 107-year daily flow record, account for approximately two-thirds of the annual flow volume. Our analysis suggests six flood types best capture the range of flood event variability. Two types are distinguished primarily by high peak flows, another by later season timing and long duration, two by small magnitudes separated by timing, and the last by later peak flow within the flood event. The flood regime was also evaluated through inter- and intra-annual frequency of the identified flood types, their relationship to water year conditions, and their long-term trends. This revealed, for example, year-to-year variability in flood types, associations between wet years and high peak magnitude types and between dry years and the low magnitude, late season flood type, and increasing and decreasing contribution to total annual flow in the highest two peak magnitude classes, respectively. This research focuses needed attention on floodplains, flood hydrology, ecological implications, and the utility of extending flow regime classification typically used for environmental flow targets. The approach is broadly applicable and extensible to other systems, where findings can be used to understand physical processes, assess change, and improve management strategies
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Multiscale Patterns of Riparian Plant Diversity and Implications for Restoration
Planning riparian restoration to resemble historic reference conditions requires an understanding of both local and regional patterns of plant species diversity. Thus, understanding species distributions at multiple spatial scales is essential to improve restoration planting success, to enhance long-term ecosystem functioning, and to match restoration planting designs with historic biogeographic distributions. To inform restoration planning, we examined the biogeographic patterns of riparian plant diversity at local and regional scales within a major western U.S.A. drainage, California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley. We analyzed patterns of species richness and complementarity (β-diversity) across two scales: the watershed scale and the floodplain scale. At the watershed scale, spatial patterns of native riparian richness were driven by herbaceous species, whereas woody species were largely cosmopolitan across the nearly 38,000 km 2 study area. At the floodplain scale, riparian floras reflected species richness and dissimilarity patterns related to hydrological and disturbance-driven successional sequences. These findings reinforce the importance of concurrently evaluating both local and regional processes that promote species diversity and distribution of native riparian flora. Furthermore, as restoration activities become more prevalent across the landscape, strategies for restoration outcomes should emulate the patterns of species diversity and biogeographic distributions found at regional scales. © 2011 Society for Ecological Restoration International
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Valuing year-to-go hydrologic forecast improvements for a peaking hydropower system in the Sierra Nevada
We assessed the potential value of hydrologic forecasting improvements for a snow-dominated high-elevation hydropower system in the Sierra Nevada of California, using a hydropower optimization model. To mimic different forecasting skill levels for inflow time series, rest-of-year inflows from regression-based forecasts were blended in different proportions with representative inflows from a spatially distributed hydrologic model. The statistical approach mimics the simpler, historical forecasting approach that is still widely used. Revenue was calculated using historical electricity prices, with perfect price foresight assumed. With current infrastructure and operations, perfect hydrologic forecasts increased annual hydropower revenue by 1.6 million, with lower values in dry years and higher values in wet years, or about $0.8 million (1.2%) on average, representing overall willingness-to-pay for perfect information. A second sensitivity analysis found a wider range of annual revenue gain or loss using different skill levels in snow measurement in the regression-based forecast, mimicking expected declines in skill as the climate warms and historical snow measurements no longer represent current conditions. The value of perfect forecasts was insensitive to storage capacity for small and large reservoirs, relative to average inflow, and modestly sensitive to storage capacity with medium (current) reservoir storage. The value of forecasts was highly sensitive to powerhouse capacity, particularly for the range of capacities in the northern Sierra Nevada. The approach can be extended to multireservoir, multipurpose systems to help guide investments in forecasting
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Ecosystem services in vineyard landscapes: a focus on aboveground carbon storage and accumulation.
BackgroundOrganic viticulture can generate a range of ecosystem services including supporting biodiversity, reducing the use of conventional pesticides and fertilizers, and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions through long-term carbon (C) storage. Here we focused on aboveground C storage rates and accumulation using a one-year increment analysis applied across different winegrape varietals and different-aged vineyard blocks. This produced a chronosequence of C storage rates over what is roughly the productive lifespan of most vines (aged 2-30 years). To our knowledge, this study provides the first estimate of C storage rates in the woody biomass of vines. Additionally, we assessed C storage in wildland buffers and adjacent oak-dominated habitats over a 9-year period.ResultsCarbon storage averaged 6.5 Mg/Ha in vines. We found the average annual increase in woody C storage was 43% by mass. Variation correlated most strongly with vine age, where the younger the vine, the greater the relative increase in annual C. Decreases in C increment rates with vine age were more than offset by the greater overall biomass of older vines, such that C on the landscape continued to increase over the life of the vines at 18.5% per year on average. Varietal did not significantly affect storage rates or total C stored. Carbon storage averaged 81.7 Mg/Ha in native perennial buffer vegetation; we found an 11% increase in mass over 9 years for oak woodlands and savannas.ConclusionsDespite a decrease in the annual rate of C accumulation as vines age, we found a net increase in aboveground C in the woody biomass of vines. The results indicate the positive role that older vines play in on-farm (vineyard) C and overall aboveground accumulation rates. Additionally, we found that the conservation of native perennial vegetation as vineyard buffers and edge habitats contributes substantially to overall C stores. We recommend that future research consider longer time horizons for increment analysis, as this should improve the precision of C accumulation rate estimates, including in belowground (i.e., soil) reservoirs