Supported by the California Wildlife Conservation Board, CBI will be working closely with the Strategic Growth Council, UC Davis, and other agency staff to conduct a Regional Conservation Assessment (RCA) for two pilot areas in the state – Mojave Desert and Modoc Plateau – and build an easy-to-use, online assessment tool to evaluate potential conservation investments based on a set of standards developed by the Integrated Regional Conservation and Development program (IRCAD). RCAs are designed to provide a standardized and current assessment of the biological values and ecological conditions within each ecoregion in California serving as the important context to carry out more effective and ecologically sensitive development in the state. This project builds upon existing investment through the California Energy Commission’s statewide renewable energy planning efforts.
The Coyote Valley is a last chance landscape. The Valley, located within one of the world’s top 25 most important biodiversity hotspots, occurs on the south side of San Jose, California and is situated between the Santa Cruz Mountains and Diablo Range. The Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, in partnership with CBI, assembled a team of local and regional scientists with the goal of integrating existing scientific information and knowledge to develop a vision and practical plan for achieving a fully functional landscape linkage through the Valley to avoid isolating the two mountain ranges while protecting extremely important valley floor species and habitats. The plan includes restoration of important wetland and uplands habitats, support for numerous rare and sensitive species, and protection of important water and agricultural resources.
*Click here for the full report.
Conservation Biology Institute is working with the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon State University to develop the Climate Smart Restoration Tool (CSRT), an interactive web-based application that allows the user to match current seed sources with future climate conditions.
Natural resource managers must match the climatic adaptability of their seed sources to the climatic conditions of their restoration sites in order to better ensure successful long-term restoration outcomes. There is an urgent need to adopt climate-smart approaches to ecosystem management, but progress has been slow because landowners and natural resource managers lack readily available, site-specific information on which to act. Existing scientific information has been unavailable at the scale needed by natural resource managers and restoration practitioners.
The CSRT will be designed to (1) easily incorporate new scientific information (e.g., climate projections, physiological thresholds) and (2) allow users to select parameters of interest (e.g., climate change scenarios, and time periods). Climate associated with existing ecoregions and seed zones will be displayed so that natural resource managers can choose the appropriate seed source for their restoration site, or decide where seed from a particular source can be planted in the future. Managers will also be able to view spatial maps of current and future climate, seed zones, ecoregions, and other contextual map layers. The CSRT will provide the ability to download outputs of the tool to PowerPoint slides, PDF documents, and GeoTIFF files in order to share those results with others and perform additional analysis within desktop data processing environments.
Because of the uncertainty in climate change projections, the CSRT is primarily intended as a planning and educational tool. It can be used to explore alternative future conditions, assess risk, and plan potential responses. The tool allows the user to control many input parameters so the results are appropriate for the management practices, climate change assumptions, and risk tolerance of the user.
The CSRT will be implemented following the same method used to develop and publish the Seedlot Selection Tool (SST; https://seedlotselectiontool.org/sst/; Figure 1). We will develop a fully functional and widely available version of the CSRT using the latest open-source software and incorporating mechanisms for its long-term maintenance. We will work collaboratively with key stakeholders to ensure that the application is effective in meeting their needs, using a variety of mechanisms including webinars and targeted outreach.
Screenshot of the Seedlot Selection Tool (SST), a forest-centric tool that helps natural resource managers match forest tree seed sources and climate conditions at planting sites.
CBI partnered with The Applied Climate Science Lab (ACSL) at the University of Idaho (UI) to expand functionality and data integration between the Northwest Knowledge Network (NKN) and Data Basin. These improvements better enable users to explore and interpret climate-related data, and incorporate that information into their projects and landscape-level or regional planning efforts. Specifically, these improvements allow users to import THREDDS map and data services into Data Basin for visualization. THREDDS is a data hosting system often used for climate-related data.
CBI also created a conterminous US Climate Console that includes simulated climate change impacts on vegetation cover, carbon cycle and fire occurrence and displays both MACA climate projections and MC2 vegetation model results in a web application similar to CBI’s California Climate Console. The Climate Console lowers the barriers to exploring and interpreting climate projections and impacts, and makes this information more readily available for natural resource managers. This tool will enable managers to more easily incorporate near and longer-term climate projections into their resource management planning. It supports making decisions about when to plant restoration species on a site post-fire and areas that are likely to undergo significant longer-term impacts from climate change.
A Regional Conservation Investment Strategy (RCIS) is a voluntary, non-regulatory, and non-binding conservation assessment that includes information and analyses relating to the conservation of focal species, their associated habitats, and the conservation status of the RCIS land base. The RCIS program, which is administered by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, was created by state bill AB 2087. This conservation strategy is intended to guide conservation investments and advance mitigation in RCIS areas. CBI provided scientific and technical support to ICF International, who led the development of a pilot RCIS for the Antelope Valley in LA County. Implementation of this strategy is intended to sustain and enhance focal species and their habitats in the face of climate change and other stressors such as habitat loss and fragmentation.
CBI is providing science and technical support to assist the California Energy Commission (CEC) in planning the state’s future energy needs, which includes achieving aggressive renewable energy goals with minimal damage to natural systems. Building off of previous work completed for the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP), CBI is working to improve access and transparency of scientific data, maps and analysis. As a subset of the work, CBI is supporting the Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative 2.0 (RETI). RETI, according to the CEC, “is an open, transparent, and science-based process that will explore the abundant renewable generation resources in California and throughout the West, consider critical land use and environmental constraints, and identify potential transmission opportunities that could access and integrate renewable energy with the most environmental, economic, and community benefits.”
CBI is developing additional data, models, tools, and technical assistance that align with statewide energy and climate change adaptation planning. This work extends the information and tools previously built for the DRECP planning region to other areas of the state particularly in areas with high renewable energy potential.
Climate change and related impacts such as drought and wildfire are growing concerns throughout the state. In response, CBI is developing additional datasets and visualization applications to put this information into statewide context. CBI will deliver this data and information to the CEC and other California State agencies.
The Santa Barbara County Conservation Blueprint provides a common language and platform for publicly available data to support in depth conversations and informed decisions about the Santa Barbara County landscape. This collaborative project aims to describe the current landscape, natural resources, and community values about land in Santa Barbara County.
CBI is supporting this process for the Santa Barbara County region. The process is led by the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County, Cachuma Resource Conservation District, and the Santa Barbara Foundation’s LEAF Initiative to develop a Conservation Gateway for Santa Barbara County. This process is also guided by a 12-member Steering Committee representing agriculture, conservation, resource management, and the natural sciences.
This data gathering and community engagement process led to a Conservation “Blueprint” (including a Data Basin Gateway) that is providing a science based decision-making platform for future conservation in the county, including acquisition, restoration and guidance for other potential land management opportunities. In the long-term, this process is expected to include collective visioning, tool- sharing and collaborative strategies. The effort will strengthen the region’s integrity by building community, sharing information, and facilitating stewardship.
Visit www.sbcblueprint.net to learn more about the Blueprint project and explore the online Atlas.
The Crestridge Ecological Reserve (CER) is owned by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and managed by the Endangered Habitats Conservancy (EHC), while the South Crest Preserve Complex which is owned and managed by EHC. Together these properties comprise approximately 4,000 acres of conserved land in San Diego County, CA. They high value species and habitats, and function as a critical linkage between conserved lands in the San Diego National Wildlife Refuge to the south and the Cleveland National Forest to the north and east.
CBI has provided science support for these lands since 2000, including baseline surveys, vegetation mapping, rare plant monitoring, invasive species mapping and management, habitat restoration, and experimental programs to develop or refine Best Management Practices (BMPs) for adaptive management onsite and in the region. In addition, CBI prepared the Habitat Management and Monitoring Plan for Crestridge and is currently preparing the Resource Management Plan for the South Crest Preserve Complex. These activities are documented in reports. Please refer to Data Basin for spatial data:
https://databasin.org/groups/92c7bce8d88d43b3a800dd686195007e/content#expand=22873
https://databasin.org/groups/92c7bce8d88d43b3a800dd686195007e/content#expand=22873%2C22874
https://databasin.org/groups/92c7bce8d88d43b3a800dd686195007e/content#expand=22873%2C28744
https://databasin.org/groups/92c7bce8d88d43b3a800dd686195007e/content#expand=22873%2C28744%2C82726
Southern California NCCPs support edaphic endemic plants that face low genetic diversity due to reduced population sizes, geographic isolation, and loss of pollinators. To enhance the resilience of these species across their ranges, we must manage threats to increase population sizes, identify potentially suitable habitat to connect existing populations, find or restore new populations, and provide opportunities for shifting distributions due to climate change. The Management Strategic Plan for San Diego County requires prioritization and management for edaphic endemic plants, including the five species addressed in this proposal: Acanthomintha ilicifolia, Brodiaea filifolia, Deinandra conjugens, Nolina interrata, and Tetracoccus dioicus. Regional goals include maintaining or expanding existing occurrences or establishing new occurrences to increase resilience to environmental stochasticity, maintaining genetic diversity, and ensuring persistence over the long-term in native plant communities.
This study presents an approach for identifying and describing geographic areas that support edaphic endemic species and their habitat in a design that enhances resilience and provides opportunities for shifting distributions. We developed conceptual models to inform field studies and management, refined soils and vegetation attributes, and assessed regional population structure and threats. We used results to suggest prioritized locations for surveys, management, potential translocation, and additional conservation or acquisition. Project partners (U.S. Geological Survey and San Diego Management and Monitoring Program) modeled suitable habitat for the target species under current and future climate scenarios; we reference models as appropriate.
All target species occur on nutrient poor soils, and each species is associated with a unique suite of physical and chemical soil properties. We provide a range of variables for each species that can inform site selection for management and restoration. Testing soil before enhancing or augmenting small occurrences will allow us to locate suitable sites and eliminate or remediate unsuitable sites with remnant populations before investing management funds.
We used distribution data, habitat suitability models, genetic principles and information to develop regional population structures for each target species. We then identified populations or population groups important for long-term resilience and locations where conservation and management actions would be most beneficial.
Models predict declining habitat in the future for all target species under various climate scenarios, although the amount of predicted habitat remaining varies among species. We recommend conserving future predicted suitable habitat within or beyond San Diego County, and experimentally translocating target species into this habitat as climatic conditions change if monitoring indicates further species declines.
This work contributes to San Diego NCCP subarea plans in progress and other NCCPs. The project area includes the North County MSCP, South County MSCP, and MHCP.
CBI biologists Patricia Gordon-Reedy, Spring Strahm, and Jessie Vinje worked with the San Diego Management and Monitoring Program, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, The Nature Conservancy, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR), and San Diego County land managers on this project. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife funded this work under a Local Assistance Grant.