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.