Geography 417
California for Educators

California’s Biomes and Agriculture

Objectives

•Students identify and describe the major biotic regimes in California.

•Students explain the causal variables that create biomes, including the influence of weather and climate on plant life.

•Students explain links between natural biomes and agricultural patterns.

California State Standards

•4.1 Students demonstrate an understanding of the physical and human geographic features that define places and regions in California.

•Explain and use the coordinate grid system of latitude and longitude to determine the absolute locations of places in California and on Earth.

•Distinguish between the North and South Poles; the equator and the prime meridian; the tropics; and the hemispheres, using coordinates to plot locations.

•Identify the state capital and describe the various regions of California, including how their characteristics and physical environments (e.g., water, landforms, vegetation, climate) affect human activity.

•Identify the locations of the Pacific Ocean, rivers, valleys, and mountain passes and explain their effects on the growth of towns.

•Use maps, charts, and pictures to describe how communities in California vary in land use, vegetation, wildlife, climate, population density, architecture, services, and transportation.

Why is this important?

•Because agriculture is the leading industry in California.

•Because our natural biotic diversity is an indicator of the agricultural possibilities.

•Because our natural biotic diversity is an important factor in the health of our tourism industry.

•Because plants and animals have intrinsic value.

Definitions

•A habitat is the often specialized home environment most typical for a given species.

•Ecosystem: a total assemblage of components living and non living that compose the interactive sphere of a group of organisms

•Biome: the largest category of ecosystem, perhaps stretching over half a continent.

•Biogeography: the study of the variation in ecosystems from place to place.

•The distributions of biomes and ecosystems is largely a factor of conditions of climate, & topography.

•Maps of climate and biomes are similar.

Habitats (fig)

Biomes

Biotic Factors

Vertical Zonation of Vegetation

•figure

What’s going on here?

What’s going on here?

California Forests (fig)

California Landcover
(fig)

Bioimages Website

•Cool website hosted by Vanderbilt University.

•http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages/frame.htm

•Click on a map, and it will provide photos of plants by the ecoregions (or biomes).

California Vegetation Zones (fig)

California’s “Biomes”

•Chaparral and Coastal Scrublands

•Needleleaf/Coastal forests

•Oak Mixed Woodlands

•Desert scrub

•Semi-Desert, Steppe, Short Grass Prairie

Scrub Forests

•Doesn’t look like a “forest”, but these are technically small trees, or woody plants.

•Found in dry areas, so can also be thought of as desert forests, or dryland forests.

•Several types in California

Coastal Scrub Forest

•Dominates many local hillsides.

•Also known as “soft chaparral” or “coastal sage”

•Common in coastal areas below 2500 ft where it is foggier, cooler.

•Smells nice. Herb-y.

•Thin band along coast in north, more widespread in south; Climates range from moist to near desert.

•Many pyrophytic species and many people.

Coastal Sage Scrub (figs)

Laurel sumac (Malosma laurina), California sagebrush (Artemisia californica), White sage (Salvia apiana) in Diegan Coastal Sage Scrub

Poison Oak

•Common among coastal scrub communities.

•Good to know.

Chaparral “hard chaparall”

•Covers 10% of the state. 800 plant species!

•Climate, soil conditions make it more common in Southern CA.

•Also Pyrophytic and frequently sclerophylls

•Many species fire adapted - root sprout, volatile oils (Manzanita)

•Occupy low dry slopes in north, cover much of southern mountains, including the higher Santa Monica Mountains.

•Known as hard chaparral - woody shrubs 10-15 ft high

•Common species include chamise, ceanothus, manzanita

Chaparral (fig)

Chamise (fig)

Manzanita (fig)

California Lilac (fig)

Desert Biomes

•In those areas that get less than 10 inches of rain per year, there are several plant associations common in California.

•Xerophytic Adaptations

·Schlerophyllous adaptations - small, waxy leaves or thorns replace leaves

·Succulents - stems modified to spongy water storage structures

·Ephemerals - fast reproductive cycle

·Deep tap roots - connect to perennial water.

·Wide spacing with shallow roots - collect sparse rainfall

High Deserts – Great Basin

•Significant seasonal and diurnal swings.

•Evapotranspiration exceeds the 10 in rain/ year

•Poor soils, rocky and frequently saline.

•Piñon Pine and Juniper grow in higher elevations where soil/moisture are better

•Joshua Trees are indicative of the Mojave or high desert.

•Some sage older than 200 years

•Lots of Creosote Bushes

Joshua Tree (fig)

Great Basin Sagebrush (fig)

Lower Scrub Deserts
Sonoran and Colorado Deserts

•Southeastern corner of the state mostly.

•Saline soils, high heat, little cold.

•No trees

•Similarly dominated by Sagebrush-scrub-creosote bush

•King Clone= 11,000+ years old.

•Jojoba

•Barrel cactus, cholla, saguaro

•Ephemerals are also common.

Low Desert (fig)

Creosote Bush Scrub (fig)

California’s Grasslands

•Once covered 13% of the state

•Formerly covered most of Sacramento, San Joaquin and Salinas Valleys

•Where? Why?

–Precipitation and soil porosity

–Areas with moderately low precipitation, hot summers

•What is done with the grasslands now?

Grassland Communities and Marshes

•Habitat for as many as 50,000 - 100, 000 Native Americans

•Have been modified earlier and more extensively than any other plant community

•We don't know what native grasslands were really like because alien grasses and grazing animals were introduced early by Spanish

•Effect of grazing non-native animals?

•Mediterranean grass species well adapted to local conditions

Grassland Communities and Marshes (fig)

Forest Biomes

•There are numerous forest types in California, in addition to the Chaparall, you should know the other two general forest types:

•Oak Woodlands / Hardwoods

•Needleleaf / Coniferous

Oak Woodlands

•Also known as Hardwood, or Broadleaf

•Occupies regions with reasonably good soil and moisture.

•Occupies the margins between grasslands and needleleaf forests…often mixed.

•May be open canopy (few trees-savannah) or more close canopied if more water is available.

•Varies mostly by distance to Ocean.

Oak Woodlands

•Found in wet-dry climates.

•Common on edges of Great Valley

•North slopes or wetter zones uphill or where soil moisture is held better by soil

•Includes both deciduous and evergreen oaks, some are drought deciduous

•Produce acorns

•Much of native range destroyed

Savannah

Oak Woodlands (fig)

Coniferous Forests

•Cone bearing trees, also called needleleaf forests

•Includes many sub-categories in California

•Coastal and Montane (cold weather) are two major subgroups

•Coniferous forest are generally found where conditions are too difficult for hardwood trees.

•Generally are the most important commercial forests and are therefore most often controversial.

•Less than 10% of old growth forest remains

Coastal Coniferous Forest

•Part of the temperate rainforest famous in Oregon and Washington

•Cool temperatures, abundant precipitation, high humidity, soil conditions

•Include Monterey pine, cypress, bishop pine, Torrey pine

•Douglas Fir, Coastal Redwood

Coastal Conifers (fig)

Coast Redwoods

·Sequoia sempervirens

·Ancient relict species once much more widespread

·Tallest trees on earth.

•What allows them to grow so high?

–Mild wet winders and foggy summers help prevent water loss and fog drip may add 20” of precipitation to forest floor.

•What protections allow them to live to be 2000 years old?

•Northern Spotted Owl 1990

Coastal Redwoods (fig)

Montane Coniferous Forest Communities

·Cover most mid-elevation ranges of west slope of Sierra Nevada and Cascades, higher Southern California mountains

·Strong elevational gradients in composition

·Giant sequoias endemic to west slope of Sierra Nevada (sequoia giganteum)

·Fire adapted - bark and seedlings need ash.

·Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) - natural hybrid of firs and pine. Christmas tree smell. Huge commercial harvest. Oregon state tree.

Douglas Fir Farm (fig)

Giant Sequoia (fig)

Other needleleaf forests

•Lower Montane Forests

–Includes some of the worst soils, poorest rainfall of the mountain biomes and therefore some of the hardiest trees.

–Ponderosa Pine and Jeffrey Pine.

•Higher Montane Forests

–Better moisture, but often rockier, well drained soils predominate

–Red Fir on lower slopes

–Lodgepole Pine higher up

•Subalpine Forests

–The highest ecosystem in California

–From 6000 ft to the tree line

•Bristlecone pines are the oldest trees on earth some are more than 4,600 years old

Bristlecone Pine (fig)

Pinyon-Juniper Woodland

•Widespread in Northeast, east of the Sierra Nevada and higher desert mountains of Southern California

•Leeward side of the mountains

•Open woodland with abundant bare soil

•Generally range around 4000-8000'

Pinyon-Juniper Woodland (fig)

Ecologic Islands

•Frequently small places with special conditions may support radically different plant/animal communities than nearby neighbors.

•What factors would contribute to this ?

•Serpentine communities

•Riparian communities

•Desert Wash, Oases, Fan Palm

•Halophyte communities

•http://www.cnps.org/gallery/gallery.htm

Fan Palm (fig)

Saltbush Scrub (fig)

Riparian Vegetation

·Year round water, or at least groundwater

·Widespread along California Rivers and Streams

·Sycamore and Cottonwood Trees, Mule Fat

Riparian Vegetation (fig)