Post-Fire Recovery in Coastal Sage Scrub: Seed Rain and Community Trajectory

Post-Fire Recovery in Coastal Sage Scrub: Seed Rain and Community Trajectory

Disturbance is a primary mechanism structuring ecological communities. However, human activity has the potential to alter the frequency and intensity of natural disturbance regimes, with subsequent effects on ecosystem processes. In Southern California, human development has led to increased fire frequency close to urban areas that can form a positive feedback with invasive plant spread. Unders...

Coastal Sage Scrub Succession1

Professor of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90024 USA Abstract: Unlike chaparral, shrubs of coastal sage are capable of continual seedling reproduction. As a result, mixed-aged stands form which show little senescence. Litter turnover is twice as rapid. The more open sage scrub canopy permits persistence of a diverse herb layer into mature communities. Crown sprout...

Alternative causes of edge-abundance relationships in birds and small mammals of California coastal sage scrub

Changes in the distribution and abundance of bird and small mammal species at urban-wildland edges can be caused by different factors. Edges can affect populations directly if animals respond behaviorally to the edge itself or if proximity to edge directly affects demographic vital rates (an ‘‘ecotonal’’ effect). Alternatively, urban edges can indirectly affect populations if edges alter the ch...

When Chaparral and Coastal Sage Scrub Burn: Consequences for Mammals, Management, and More

Seed Rain and Seed Bank Reveal that Seed Limitation Strongly Influences Plant Community Assembly in Grasslands

Dispersal is an important factor in plant community assembly, but assembly studies seldom include information on actual dispersal into communities, i.e. the local propagule pool. The aim of this study was to determine which factors influence plant community assembly by focusing on two phases of the assembly process: the dispersal phase and the establishment phase. At 12 study sites in grazed ex...