Post-Tubbs Fire Chaparral Floristic Survey at Pepperwood Preserve in the California Coast Ranges 2018-2019

The Dwight Center for Conservation Science at Pepperwood is an
ecological institute dedicated to educating, engaging, and inspiring
our community through habitat preservation, science-based
conservation, leading-edge research, and interdisciplinary educational
programs. Our mission is to steward the life and landscapes of the
3,200-acre Pepperwood Preserve and to advance science-based
conservation of ecosystems throughout our region and beyond. Following
the October 2017 Tubbs Fire, Pepperwood hired Nomad Ecology, LLC, to
implement Nomad Ecology's post-fire research program at Pepperwood.
Specifically, Nomad Ecology conducted a two-year study of post-fire
plant diversity and succession in chaparral at the preserve. Species
richness and ecological dynamics are not well understood in these
post-fire areas (especially in northern California) despite high
interest from land managers, ecologists, and botanists. Documentation
of the post-fire flora and the sensitive species that are part of this
fleeting diversity is essential to understanding the full range of
natural resources associated with chaparral ecosystems, and thus key
to developing conservation goals specific to Pepperwood. This study
documented the burn severity and diversity and abundance of the
fleeting post-Tubbs Fire flora in spring 2018 and 2019 using species
ocular cover estimates across ten 50-meter belt transects in four
different soil types: rhyolite, fluvial and lacustrine deposits,
andesite, and serpentinite.