California Floristic Province

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Further information: Chaparral
California floristic province

The California Floristic Province (CFP) is a

endemic species. To be named a biodiversity hotspot, an area has to contain species and plant life that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The California Floristic Province is home to over 3,000 species of vascular plants, 60% of which are endemic to the province.[2]

The California Floristic Province belongs to the

Sonoran Province (which includes the Mojave, Colorado, Sonoran, and Baja California deserts). To the north, the region is bordered by the Vancouverian Province of the Rocky Mountain Floristic Region, and much of coastal and mountain Northern California and southwestern Oregon
are defined as falling into either province depending on a given author's delimitations.

With an area of 293,803 km2 (113,438 sq mi), as defined by

Robert F. Thorne (Flora of North America) and Armen Takhtajan, include Oregon and Northern California within the Rocky Mountain Province.[3]

The California Floristic Province is a world biodiversity hotspot as defined by

endemic plants: approximately 8,000 plant species in the geographic region, and over 3,400 taxa limited to the CFP proper, as well as having lost over 70% of its primary vegetation. A biodiversity hotspot contains irreplaceable areas to the plants and animals that live there. Among these unique regions, almost every one of them is subject to their exclusive species being at greater risk from the impact of humans. The greatest threat to this area is wilderness destruction caused by large commercial farming industries and the heavy expansion of urban areas. Conservation International proposed a strategy in 1998, to focus more specifically on areas of the California Floristic Province that contained the most human impact in order to lower the threat to the region. The issues that are causing the most threats to this province include but are not limited to population pressures, loss of habitat, unsustainable resource use, and introduced non-native species.[4]

Climate and topography

The California Floristic Province is one of the five biodiversity hotspots with

redwood forests amongst other communities.[5]

In California, the province includes most of the state excluding the Modoc Plateau, Great Basin and deserts in the southeastern part of the state. In Oregon, the province includes the coastal mountains south of Cape Blanco and most of the Rogue River watershed.[6]

In Baja California, the province includes the

Sierra San Pedro Martir (but excluding their desert slopes to the east), coastal areas south to about El Rosario, and Guadalupe Island
.

In Nevada, the CFP includes the region of the Sierra in the vicinity of Lake Tahoe, with the eastern border with the Great Basin corresponding roughly to the location of Reno-Carson City.

Parts of the following mountain ranges are included in the province:

The

Great Central Valley
is also within the CFP.

California plant communities

Numerous plant communities exist in California and botanists have attempted to structure them into identifiable vegetation types groupings. Robert Ornduff and colleagues Phyllis M. Faber and Todd Keeler-Wolf did much work on this problem, and in the 2003 Natural History Guide Introduction to California Plant Life [citation needed] established a cohesive set of titles to identify California plant communities based on but somewhat different from those earlier established by California botanist Philip A. Munz.

Broken into three large groupings based on geography, the Ornduff scheme includes [citation needed]: the Cismontane ("this side of the mountain") west of the

rainshadow of these ranges, typically desert
.

Cismontane region

  • Coastal Strand
    (same in Munz)
  • Coastal Prairie (same in Munz)
  • Coastal Salt Marsh (same in Munz)
  • Chaparral (Hard Chaparral) (same in Munz)
  • Closed-Cone Pine Forest
    (same in Munz)
  • Coastal Sage Scrub
    (Soft Chaparral) (same in Munz)
  • Freshwater marsh (same in Munz)
  • Maritime Coast Range Ponderosa Pine forests
  • Montane Chaparral (not in Munz)
  • North Coastal Forest
    (includes North Coastal Coniferous Forest, Redwood Forest, Douglas-fir Forest and Mixed Evergreen Forest (from Munz) )
  • Northern Coastal Scrub
    (same in Munz)
  • Riparian Woodland (same in Munz)
  • Foothill Woodland
    (includes Northern, Southern Oak Woodland, Foothill Woodland)
  • Valley Grassland
    (same in Munz)

Montane region

Transmontane region

Endemic species and ecosystems

The hotspot presents a higher level of endemism in plants than in animals. Of the 7,031 vascular plants (species, subspecies or varieties) found in the hotspot, 2,153 taxa (in 25 genera) are endemic, meaning they are found nowhere else.[7] About 80,000 km2, or 24.7% of the original vegetation remains in relatively pristine conditions today.

The six largest plant families in California by number of species (40% of all species of vascular plants) are:[citation needed]

The province notably has

coastal dunes, mudflats and salt marshes
.

A few examples of plants that are endemic to the province and are also endangered species are:

  • Baker's larkspur
  • Gowen cypress
  • Hickman's potentilla
  • Point Reyes bird's beak
  • Santa Cruz tarplant
  • Santa Rosa Island manzanita

Threatened and endangered

Agriculture and urban expansion are encroaching upon remaining

fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas is the first step in the fight against global warming.[4]

Conservation efforts

Biodiversity hotspots face the highest threats due to the fact that their resources and animal or plant species cannot be replicated or found in any other regions on the planet. Conservation efforts receive little to no funding to put toward the protection of these extremely distinctive hotspots. So establishing priorities on where to focus efforts is essential. In 1988, British Ecologist,

Nature Conservancy, Wilderness Society and the California Native Plant Society.[4]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Conservation International". Conservation.org. Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  2. Madroño
    , 63:3-206.
  3. ^ Thorne, Robert F. Phytogeography of North America North of Mexico Archived 2004-03-17 at the Wayback Machine. Flora of North America, Vol. 1, Ch. 6.
  4. ^ a b c "HOTSPOT:California on the Edge". Calacademy.org. Archived from the original on 2012-12-02. Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  5. ^ "Tree Removal Melbourne – Tree Surgery Melbourne – Professional Tree Care Services". Tree-care.com.au. Retrieved 15 October 2017.
  6. ^ Tree Removal. Tree, Seed and Land Co. 2014. Retrieved 2 April 2014.
  7. ^ Hickman, J.C. (Ed.), 1993. The Jepson Manual, Higher Plants of California. University of California Press. Appendix I, Pg. 1315.

Further reading

  • Ornduff, R., Faber, P. M. & Keeler-Wolf, T. 2003. Introduction to California Plant Life. Revised edition. University of California Press
  • California Floristic Province, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
  • California Floristic Province, Biodiversity Hotspots, Conservation International
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