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All plant species were identified down to finest taxa when possible. Each plant code used in the survey data is paired to a plant code on this species list which provides the full scientific name of each species, the plant family the species belongs to, the native or non-native status of species, and the life history of the plant. Plant nomenclature follows: Baldwin B.G., D.H. Goldman, D.J. Keil, R. Patterson, T.J. Rosatti, and D.H. Wilken, editors. 2012. The Jepson Manual: vascular plants of California. Second edition. University of California Press, Berkeley, USA.
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Digital elevation model outputs from wetland accreting rate model of ecosystem resilience (WARMER) at ten year intervals from 2010-2110. Baseline elevations were collected with RTK GPS units and LiDAR elevations in non-surveyed areas were also corrected using LEAN method. Historical accretion rates were collected at each salt marsh and used to parameterize WARMER, predicting future elevations. These data support the following publication: Rosencranz JA, Thorne KM, Buffington KJ, et al. Sea‐level rise, habitat loss, and potential extirpation of a salt marsh specialist bird in urbanized landscapes. Ecol Evol. 2018;00:1–11. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.4196
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Physical site characteristics including aspect, elevation, and slope were recorded for each study plot and spatial coordinates were obtained from a global positioning system. Stand height was determined by averaging the heights of the first live woody individual encountered along each 10 m subplot in mechanically masticated plots as well as in the adjacent controls. Unfortunately height data was not collected from postfire plots in the prior study. The age of the stand prior to each mechanical disturbance was obtained from stem samples collected from the first two obligate seeding individuals encountered within controls and ranged from seven to sixty-four years across all mechanically masticated fuel treatments....
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The data are .csv files of tagged sea otter re-sighting locations (henceforth, resights) collected in the field using a combination of VHF radio telemetry and direct observation using high powered (80x) telescopes. Sea otters were tracked by shore based observers from the date of tagging until the time of radio battery failure or the animal’s death, whichever comes first. The frequency of re-sighting was opportunistic, depending on logistical factors such as coastal access, but generally ranged from daily to weekly. Location coordinates are reported as X and Y coordinates in the projection/datum California Teale-Albers NAD 1927. Each file contains resight data for one individual sea otter collected over a period...
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In February 2017, a population of California red-legged frog Rana draytonii was discovered in the southern foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains of Riverside County, California, near the edge of the species’ historic distribution. A few days after the first sightings of R. draytonii at the Whitewater Preserve, we conducted a visual daytime search for frogs, tadpoles and egg masses followed by a nighttime eye shine search for adult frogs. The captured frog weighed, measured (snout-to-urostyle [SU]), sampled for tissue and georeferenced using a GPS unit. Survey work was authorized by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Recovery Permit and a California Department of Fish and Wildlife Scientific Collecting Permit....
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Data presented are 1.) the locations where Coastal Cactus Wren (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus) genetic samples were collected in southern California, in 2011, 2012, and 2013; 2.) 2012 and 2013 survey results; 3.) the territory locations of all Cactus Wrens detected in 2011, 2012, and 2013 in Orange, Riverside, and San Diego counties; and 4.) dispersal results on a subset of Cactus Wrens color banded in 2011. These data support the following: Barr, K.R., Kus, B.E., Preston, K.L., Howell, S., Perkins, E. and Vandergast, A.G., 2015. Habitat fragmentation in coastal southern California disrupts genetic connectivity in the cactus wren (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus). Molecular Ecology, 24(10), pp.2349-2363.
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This raster dataset depicts percent canopy cover derived from 1-m conifer classifications. Conifer features were classified from 2010, 2012, and 2013 NAIP Digital Ortho Quarter Quads (DOQQ) using the Feature Analyst 5.0 extension for ArcGIS 10.1. Tiles were organized and grouped by Nevada Department of Wildlife Population Management Unit (PMU) locations, plus a 10 km area beyond the PMU extent. Analysts visually identified conifers in the imagery using false color infrared settings and digitized multiple trees per tile as training locations for classification. After performing hierarchical learning and clutter removal with Feature Analyst to remove non-conifer features on output shapefiles, the conifer polygons...
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The dataset accompanies Figures 2–4 of Matchett and Fleskes (2018) and therein the subject data are referenced as "Table A1". Data summarize peak abundance (km2) of Central Valley waterbird habitats (i.e., wetland and flooded cropland types) that are available between August and April (of the following year) for each of 17 projected scenarios by planning basin, scenario, and habitat. Area of each habitat for each scenario-basin combination is provided for the month when the most area of the respective habitat is typically flooded and available for waterbird use (i.e., January for all wetlands and winter-flooded rice and corn, and September for other winter-flooded crops in Tulare Basin). The dataset also includes...
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The sampling design at each of the 149 mechanically masticated fuel treatment study sites consisted of a 10 x 100 m plot established within the treated area at the random point generated in ArcGIS and an adjacent 10 x 100 m control plot placed one meter inside the edge of untreated vegetation to avoid edge affects. Each study plot was further subdivided into 10 100-m2 subplots with a nested 1-m2 quadrat placed along the top edge of the measurement tape. Postfire study sites consisted of a 20 x 50 m plot that was equal in area to a fuel treatment study plot and was also further subdivided into 10 100-m2 subplots with a nested 1-m2 quadrat placed along the outer top and bottom edges of the plot. Cover and density...
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California Red-legged Frogs (Rana draytonii) are typically regarded as inhabitants of permanent ponds, marshes, and slow-moving streams, but their ecology in other habitats, including coastal dunes, remains obscure. To avoid and minimize potential negative effects of dune restoration activities, we studied the spatial ecology, habitat selection, and survival of California Red-legged Frogs in coastal dune drainages at Point Reyes National Seashore, California. Frogs remained in their home drainages throughout the summer, and, with some notable exceptions, most remained close to water. Home ranges of California Red-legged Frogs in dunes were generally small, and they selected areas near water with logs that served...
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Digital elevation model outputs from wetland accreting rate model of ecosystem resilience (WARMER) at ten year intervals from 2010-2110. Baseline elevations were collected with RTK GPS units and LiDAR elevations in non-surveyed areas were also corrected using LEAN method. Historical accretion rates were collected at each salt marsh and used to parameterize WARMER, predicting future elevations.
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These data are multi-state capture histories of 273 individual San Francisco gartersnakes collected at a site before and after a portion of the site was burned. Data collection began in 2008 and continued until 2013, and the prescribed fire was applied in the fall of 2010. These data support the following paper: Halstead, B. J., Thompson, M. E., Amarello, M. , Smith, J. J., Wylie, G. D., Routman, E. J. and Casazza, M. L. (2018), Effects of prescribed fire on San Francisco gartersnake survival and movement. Jour. Wild. Mgmt.. . doi:10.1002/jwmg.21585
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The Kittlitz’s Murrelet (Brachyramphus brevirostris) is a small, non-colonial seabird endemic to marine waters of Alaska and eastern Russia that may have experienced significant population decline in recent decades, in part because of low reproductive success and terrestrial threats. Although recent studies have shed new light on Kittlitz’s Murrelet nesting habitat in a few discrete areas, the location and extent of other possible nesting areas throughout most of its range remains unclear. This data release consists of (1) nest locations for the Kittlitz’s Murrelet (2) potential Kittlitz’s Murrelet nesting habitat. These data support the following publication (available online early): Jonathan J. Felis, Michelle...
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Mechanical fuel treatments are a primary pre-fire strategy for potentially mitigating the threat of wildland fire, yet there is limited information on how they impact shrubland ecosystems. This publication contains data related to vegetation structure and composition in mechanically masticated chaparral communities used to assess the impact of these fuel treatments on shrubland vegetation and to determine the extent to which they emulate postfire succession. Data were collected from within chaparral dominated communities on the Angeles, Cleveland, Los Padres, and San Bernardino national forests of southern California. The climate of the region is Mediterranean with mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers and the...
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Arid ecosystems are often vulnerable to transformation to invasive-dominated states following fire, but data on persistence of these states are sparse. The grass/fire cycle is a feedback process between invasive annual grasses and fire frequency that often leads to the formation of alternative vegetation states dominated by the invasive grasses. However, other components of fire regimes, such as burn severity, also have the potential to produce long-term vegetation transformations. Our goal was to evaluate the influence of both fire frequency and burn severity on the transformation of woody-dominated communities to communities dominated by invasive grasses in major elevation zones of the Mojave Desert of western...
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These data were collected to determine how genetic variation is arrayed across remaining populations of gnatcatchers, allowing inference about individual movement and gene flow patterns among those populations. The work focused on determining the extent to which gnatcatcher aggregations function as an interconnected metapopulation, with aggregations exchanging migrants across a fragmented landscape and freely capable of re-establishing in patches from which they have been previously extirpated. These data will be used in combination with habitat and corridor indices to determine whether genetic connectivity is facilitated by stepping stone arrays of suitable habitat, or whether birds are unable to move across unsuitable...
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Dr. Richard Janda of the USGS began a channel monitoring program in Redwood Creek in northern coastal California in 1973. The USGS continued this work through 2013, when the Research Geologist, Dr. Mary Madej retired. This effort produced 40 years of channel change data in rivers that were disrupted by severe erosion following timber harvest of old-growth redwood forests, a portion of the program's data (plus 1953 data) has been preserved in this data release. Original field surveys documented bank erosion, aggradation, and degradation at 60 cross-sectional transects at annual or biannual timesteps. Three river reaches also have long-term longitudinal channel bed surveys which document the distribution and development...
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The recency of large-scale land conversion in California’s San Joaquin Desert raises the probability that the region’s numerous endemic species still retain genetic signatures of historical population connectivity. If so, genomic data can serve as a guidance tool for conserving lands that once supported habitat for gene movement. We studied the genetic structuring of the endangered blunt-nosed leopard lizard Gambelia sila, a San Joaquin Desert endemic, to (1) test whether patterns of population admixture could be used to delimit former habitat corridors in the pre-converted landscape, (2) evaluate whether restriction site associated DNA sequencing (RADseq) from a subset of samples can resolve structure at the same...
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Two metrics were used to determine Collision Vulnerability: Macro-avoidance and habitat flexibility. Macro-avoidance (MA)—The macro-avoidance values for species indicate the species-specific probability of avoidance for birds associated with wind power infrastructure. For each species, we derived this value from observed macro-avoidance rates (via human observation and radar) at existing offshore wind power sites. In cases where species-specific data were not available, we used information from similar taxa. Habitat Flexibility (HF)—the degree to which a species shows habitat-specific feeding strategies (habitat flexibility) influences its vulnerability for displacement by offshore infrastructure. We evaluated literature...
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Six metrics were used to determine Population Vulnerability: global population size, annual occurrence in the California Current System (CCS), percent of the population present in the CCS, threat status, breeding score, and annual adult survival. Global Population size (POP)—to determine population size estimates for each species we gathered information tabulated by American Bird Conservancy, Birdlife International, and other primary sources. Proportion of Population in CCS (CCSpop)—for each species, we generated the population size within the CCS by averaging region-wide population estimates, or by combining state estimates for California, Oregon, and Washington for each species (if estimates were not available...
map background search result map search result map Identifying Kittlitz’s Murrelet nesting habitat in North America at the landscape scale Geospatial Data Collected from Tagged Sea Otters in Central California, 1998-2012 Survey Data for Chaparral Vegetation in Masticated Fuel Treatments on the Four Southern California National Forests (2011-2012) Site Data Species List Survey Data River Channel Survey Data, Redwood Creek, California, 1953-2013 California Red-Legged Frogs in Point Reyes Coastal Dune Drainages (2015) Genetic Structure of California Gnatcatcher Populations in Southern California from 2012 through 2013 Distribution and Population Genetic Structure of Coastal Cactus Wrens in Southern California Displacement vulnerability of marine birds within the California Current System Population vulnerability of marine birds within the California Current System Canopy cover classes of conifers within Nevada and northeastern California sage-grouse habitat, by quadrant (2017) Cover of Woody and Herbaceous Functional Groups in Burned and Unburned Plots, Mojave Desert, 2009-2013 Coastal California San Francisco Gartersnake Capture-Mark-Recapture Data (2008-2013) New record of California red-legged frog (Rana draytonii) in Whitewater Canyon, Riverside County, CA, USA Data for figures 2 - 4 (Table A1) Digital elevation model outputs from wetland accreting rate model of ecosystem resilience (WARMER) at ten year intervals from 2010-2110 Carpinteria salt marsh digital elevation model output, sea-level rise scenarios, 2010-2110 Carpinteria salt marsh digital elevation model output, sea-level rise scenarios, 2010-2110 California Red-Legged Frogs in Point Reyes Coastal Dune Drainages (2015) New record of California red-legged frog (Rana draytonii) in Whitewater Canyon, Riverside County, CA, USA River Channel Survey Data, Redwood Creek, California, 1953-2013 Coastal California San Francisco Gartersnake Capture-Mark-Recapture Data (2008-2013) Genetic Structure of California Gnatcatcher Populations in Southern California from 2012 through 2013 Distribution and Population Genetic Structure of Coastal Cactus Wrens in Southern California Survey Data for Chaparral Vegetation in Masticated Fuel Treatments on the Four Southern California National Forests (2011-2012) Site Data Species List Survey Data Digital elevation model outputs from wetland accreting rate model of ecosystem resilience (WARMER) at ten year intervals from 2010-2110 Geospatial Data Collected from Tagged Sea Otters in Central California, 1998-2012 Data for figures 2 - 4 (Table A1) Cover of Woody and Herbaceous Functional Groups in Burned and Unburned Plots, Mojave Desert, 2009-2013 Canopy cover classes of conifers within Nevada and northeastern California sage-grouse habitat, by quadrant (2017) Displacement vulnerability of marine birds within the California Current System Population vulnerability of marine birds within the California Current System Identifying Kittlitz’s Murrelet nesting habitat in North America at the landscape scale