California chaparral and woodlands
 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (March 2012) |
| California chaparral and woodlands | |
|---|---|
Mediterranean |
The California chaparral and woodlands is a
Setting
Three sub-ecoregions
The California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion is subdivided into three smaller ecoregions.[1]
- Channel Islands of California and Guadalupe Island.
- Coast Ranges; the Transverse Ranges; and the western slopes of the northern Peninsular Ranges.
- Sierra Nevada.
Locations
Most of the population of California and Baja California lives in these ecoregions, which includes the
.The
Flora
The ecoregion includes a great variety of plant communities, including
There are two types of chaparral: soft and hard chaparral. Hard chaparral is usually evergreen, located at higher elevation and is harder to walk through. Soft chaparral tends to be drought deciduous, live at lower elevations and tends to be easier to walk through.[citation needed]
Fauna
Species include the
Another notable insect resident of this ecoregion is the rain beetle (Pleocoma sp.) It spends up to several years living underground in a larval stage and emerges only during wet-season rains to mate.
Fire
Chaparral, like most Mediterranean shrublands, is highly fire resilient and historically burned with high-severity, stand replacing events every 30 to 100 years.[2] Historically, Native Americans burned chaparral to promote grasslands for textiles and food.[3] Though adapted to infrequent fires, chaparral plant communities can be exterminated by frequent fires especially with climate change induced drought.[4][5] Today, frequent accidental ignitions can convert chaparral from a native shrubland to nonnative annual grassland and drastically reduce species diversity, especially under global-change-type drought.[4][5] The historical fire return interval for chaparral communities used to be 30–50 years, but has now decreased to 5–10 years due to human interference.[citation needed]
Human influence
The region has been heavily affected by grazing, logging, dams and water diversions, and
See also
- California Chaparral Institute
- California coastal prairie
- California montane chaparral
- Chaparral
- Closed-cone pine forest
- Coast Redwood forest
- Coastal sage scrub
- Mixed evergreen forest
- Northern coastal scrub
- Oak woodland
- Sierra Nevada lower montane forest
References
- ^ a b c "California Chaparral & Woodlands". World Wildlife Fund. Archived from the original on October 8, 2012. Retrieved 2012-06-15. (material included verbatim under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license
- ^ Keeley, JE; Davis, FW (2007). "Chaparral". In Barbour, MG; Keeler-Wolf, T; Schoenherr, AA (eds.). Terrestrial Vegetation of California (PDF). Los Angeles: University of California Press. pp. 339–366.
- ^ Vale, TR (2002). Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape. Washington, DC: Island Press. pp. 269–286.
- ^ PMID 17708216.
- ^ PMID 24375846.
- Bakker, Elna (1971) An Island Called California. University of California Press; Berkeley.
- Dallman, Peter R. (1998). Plant Life in the World's Mediterranean Climates. California Native Plant Society–University of California Press; Berkeley.
- Ricketts, Taylor H; Eric Dinerstein; David M. Olson; Colby J. Loucks; et al. (1999). Terrestrial Ecoregions of North America: a Conservation Assessment. Island Press; Washington, DC.
- Schoenherr, Allan A. (1992). A Natural History of California. University of California Press; Berkeley.
External links
- World Wildlife Fund: California Chaparral and Woodlands ecoregion
- California Chaparral Institute website
- California Coastal Sage and Chaparral images at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu (slow modem version)
- California Interior Chaparral and Woodlands images at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu — (slow modem version)
- California Montane Chaparral and Woodlands images at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu — (slow modem version)