Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus plexippus) populations across the continent have dropped precipitously over the last 30 years, especially those found west of the Rocky Mountains. In 2018 and 2019, it was estimated that less than 30,000 individuals make up the western population of monarchs, representing the lowest estimates on record and less than one percent of 1980s-1990s population levels. An analysis of annual and seasonal data from 1980-2017 showed monarch butterflies overwintering in coastal California have declined more quickly than monarch overwintering in Mexico, and declines were most strongly associated with losses and degradation of overwintering habitat. To inform restoration of the overwintering...
A primarily stream-dwelling and obligate stream-breeding species, the foothill yellow-legged frog (FYLF) has declined from over half of its historical range, and a listing decision under the U.S. Endangered Species Act will likely be made in December 2021. Recent analyses suggest that the Southwestern California (SWC) clade is the most genetically unique and at the highest risk due to stressors in its geography, revealing the urgency of addressing the conservation of this clade. The rapid extirpation of some FYLF populations from the Central California Coast may have resulted from chytrid fungus. Therefore, strategic translocations from the remaining populations along the Central California Coast now could help...
California has a broad diversity of forest ecosystems and associated wildlife, which are facing complex conservation challenges due to the increase in the frequency, severity, and size of fire outbreaks throughout the state. Although these ecosystems are fire adaptive, these catastrophic fires burn with such high severity that they destroy complete forest stands and kill off the seed bank needed for natural forest regeneration. One of the primary mechanisms for reducing the threat of high severity fires is fuel management treatments to reduce the understory and prevent damaging crown fires from occurring. Increasingly federal, state, and private entities are coordinating fuel management projects across the patchwork...
California’s Central Valley habitats will continue to be influenced in the future by factors including changing land use, water availability, and population growth. Water scarcity and droughts will increasingly challenge wetland managers in the Central Valley. Thus, decisions on where to implement restoration and conservation projects today would benefit by considering plausible future landscape scenarios to ensure that restoration projects implemented now, continue to have value for decades to come. Recent work has developed spatially-explicit land use and climate change scenarios for Central Valley wetlands. Building on these existing efforts, this project will assess site-specific suitability of wetland habitat...
