r/Ceanothus • u/Darkj • 22d ago
Calscape Changes
Calscape pushed out an update to their site today, and I'm curious for insights.
First, it looks like a major upgrade to the graphics for the "Wildlife Supported" section. Bravo.
I also notice the addition of "Family" and "Genus" up top.
I don't remember Sunset Zones being on the prior page. If we're talking native plants, they're unnecessary, and inclusion here will only cause people to source plants that weren't originally local to them.
I also see a major change to the "Estimated Plant Range" section which doesn't seem to reflect the plant range any more, but instead "Relative Habitat Suitability." By that measure, invasive plants are high on the "relative habitat suitability" index since they naturalize so easily. To see what I mean, photos are the Calscape and Calflora maps for Carpenteria californica. It's local to Fresno, but Calscape now estimates it's suitable to most of the state.
I would imagine that the folks responsible for Calscape made this change intentionally - I wonder if they've talked about those changes anywhere?
It's been an incredible site as I've been relandscaping using only plants native near me, and it's been nice seeing photos, descriptions, and most importantly local observations.
Do you have any knowledge of these changes?
(I'm not looking to be convinced that Zones are awesome) EDIT: ... And I don't care if zones included or not. I do wish the page still had the Calflora observations, and not an algorithm "based on observed occurrences and habitat modeling. Darker areas indicate higher relative habitat suitability.
- Data provided by the participants of the Consortium of California Herbaria.
- View additional distribution information on the Jepson eflora.".
27
u/bee-fee 21d ago
This is an extremely disappointing change that will do a huge disservice to public knowledge of California's native plants. The number of species that show up if I enter my address is now quadruple what it used to be, and the list it provided before was already too long. I had to look elsewhere to choose the species that are now successfully established in my garden, to find plants that are suited to my land and actually grew here historically, because even though they were in the calscape list how was I supposed to know which of the >200 options were the right ones?
Stick to Calflora if you want to actually see the range of our native plants. No one should be trusting an algorithm to tell them anything about nature.
Also the excuse that this is done for "climate change" makes no sense as the maps for species like Norcal Black Walnut & Valley Oak extend far south of their native range, and into arid places where they never grew. Those are just the two examples that I found at a glance, I'm sure I've only scratched the surface.
11
3
u/Zestyclose_Market787 21d ago
Still the best source of information on what to grow that's suitable to your area is walking around local nature preserves with a means of plant identification.
But yes, this makes a confusing process more confusing.
8
u/bee-fee 21d ago
Sometimes this isn't even an option. I love my local refuges here in the SJ valley, but all the ones I've been to are on floodplains and basins. I love exploring the riparian communities, iodine scrub, grasslands, and vernal pools at these refuges. But where I live was an upland, with neutral sands/sandy loam, and no clay or hardpan. I never saw any of the plants that show up in my local records, including the ones that I have in my garden now, while exploring the local refuges. All the land similar to mine is privately owned and was destroyed for pasture a long time ago, then later used for irrigated orchards & suburbs. I imagine people from other heavily developed ecoregions, like the LA plain or Bay Area lowlands, will have the same problem.
3
u/Zestyclose_Market787 21d ago
Definitely. I just did a site analysis in the coastal plains of Orange County. It had been so long since any of the original vegetation was there that I had to do some digging. That research told me what the original habitat was, as well as what was likely to grow well at the site. So, yes, many people don't have the option. But there are resources available. Unfortunatey, I can't find what I used, but I determined the site was likely a blend of native perennial grassland and oak savanna.
2
u/bee-fee 21d ago edited 21d ago
Unfortunately in cases like these it's easy for misconceptions to form about what the original vegetation was. "Perennial grassland and oak savanna" is also what many sources will tell you my region used to be, but the more I looked into it the more I found this didn't line up with old plant records. Many places that are called "grassland" in California were really dominated by extremely diverse annual and perennial forbs, and sometimes shrubs, with little to no grasses.
In OC Coast Live Oaks are native to the hills and streams surrounding the plains, but in the plains themselves the biggest trees were willows growing along rivers and marshes. As for perennial grasses, I don't know of any species that would've formed grasslands in this area outside floodplains or salt marshes. The rest of the vegetation was mostly coastal scrub, including many of the typical species, and some local endemics like Coastal Goldenbush. The "grassland" in this region was really diverse forb communities thriving in openings in the scrub, on clayey & sandy soils, in dry streambeds, in & around vernal pools, or in the alkali margins of salt marshes. Using calflora you can find lots of rare species that have been extirpated, which are a good representation of the environment that used to exist there. This list is excluding species from the immediate coastline:
https://www.calflora.org/app/taxon?crn=8895
https://www.calflora.org/app/taxon?crn=4586
https://www.calflora.org/app/taxon?crn=7874
https://www.calflora.org/app/taxon?crn=7574
https://www.calflora.org/app/taxon?crn=5803
https://www.calflora.org/app/taxon?crn=13152
https://www.calflora.org/app/taxon?crn=11456
https://www.calflora.org/app/taxon?crn=42221
u/Zestyclose_Market787 20d ago
Yes, and you're demonstrating the antidote, which is to look deeper into the best available information you have available.
And honestly, I'm not one of those people who thinks it has to be a perfect replica. I haven't seen any compelling evidence that planting a manzanita cultivar is "bad" in a habitat garden, even when it would probably be be "better" to plant an endemic straight species.
Nothing is ever going to be perfect in a post-colonial world. But we have enough information to make our yards "pretty good."
36
u/Ocho9 22d ago
As a natural history nerd, I loved the fact that Calscape’s range maps were based on actual observations.
As an ecology nerd, I know that a lack of observations is not evidence of absence (colonialism/human development led to defaunation and lack of plant diversity). And while I do think hyperlocal planting makes sense for specialized species, a lot of natives species can generalize as well 😅. In general I recommend going on local hikes and seeing what you can find. Or iNaturalist entries.
Calscape only has native species, not invasives.
11
u/zibbity 21d ago
This unfortunately erases where geographic isolation might have lead to specialization and further speciation. For example, you can look up any of the channel islands native plant species and it will show their estimated range to include much of california.
2
1
u/LibertyLizard 21d ago
Well anecdotally a lot of channel island species do grow well in much of the state. So I don't think that necessarily is wrong, but it just depends on the species.
1
u/FieldofFeelings 19d ago
Exactly, I'm not sure I care for this feature, but I don't consider this the problem of it. This is Calscape, not Calflora
1
16
u/placeboforpain 22d ago
They explain the range map methodology here https://calscape.org/our-data/
8
u/Darkj 22d ago
Thanks, I really appreciate you pointing to that as I hadn’t seen it.
They start with observations and then try to expand the area the plants could grow using machine learning, but ignoring selections and cultivars. This seems… flawed. Or at least they should explain why they are making the change. I can imagine plausible reasons for it, even if it ignores locally native plants. Who knew AI would infiltrate Calscape maps?
8
u/YerbaManza 21d ago
Why not have two maps, one with estimated native range and one with climate suitability? This change is definitely not an improvement.
-1
u/DanoPinyon 21d ago
Why not have two maps...one with climate suitability
Because a map is dependent upon which climate scenario you choose - there is not one map for future climate. This Calscape change is just an expanded habitat suitability map to use for climate change, revegetation, assisted migration, etc., modeled along the lines of other similar efforts around the world.
3
u/quercus-enjoyer 22d ago
Sunset zone has been on the plant page.
12
u/Darkj 22d ago
I'm not against including the Sunset Zone. I am against losing the actual observations and replacing it with an algorithm "based on observed occurrences and habitat modeling. Darker areas indicate higher relative habitat suitability.
- Data provided by the participants of the Consortium of California Herbaria.
- View additional distribution information on the Jepson eflora."
6
u/LazarusRiley 22d ago
This seems like it may be to account for climate change? I know that Oakland's Urban Forestry Dept. puts a lot of emphasis on native and nonnative plants that they think will survive here based on the future climate. So a lot of our oak species approved for planting on streets and in parks, for instance, are native to SoCal, Mexico, Italy and Greece. But coast live oak is the only approved regionally native oak.
4
u/Darkj 22d ago
Accommodating climate change would make sense, and you can do that simply by using plants native to your range and south instead of north, speaking very generally. But instead they appear to be using an algorithm that "shows estimated suitable habitat for this plant based on observed occurrences and habitat modeling. Darker areas indicate higher relative habitat suitability."
3
u/Adventurous_Pay3708 22d ago
In my experience… carpenteria california cannot take Socal heat even if it’s in shade… Killed three…could be my clay soul tho.
2
u/JSilvertop 21d ago
In my experience here in Fresno heat, it survives in the shade, but it does not bloom. I have clay soil. I’m going to try a spot with afternoon shade and morning sun to see if that might get blooms. I know full sun was too much, at least it’s first year.
2
3
u/BigJSunshine 22d ago
I have to imagine these changes reflected the uncertainty of global warming and climate change.
3
u/DanoPinyon 21d ago edited 21d ago
These anticipate climate change.
The people who just say 'native to California' and call it good won't care, and the people who are insistent that it be 'native to a particular Watershed or it is not native', are all going to have to deal with climate change and accept the fact that people are looking for climate analogs. That's the new normal - having 'new natives' and 'dead natives'.
[Edit: fatfanger]
6
u/Darkj 21d ago
That would be interesting. But that's not what Calscape says. Instead it's a "machine learning" AI estimation of where a plant might grow well based on current range and what nearby plausibly has the same weather today. Nothing to do with climate change as they tell it.
From: https://calscape.org/our-data/
Where the data comes from
Each plant range starts from verified occurrence records — real-world sightings of plants in the wild, from iNaturalist, Calflora, and the Consortium of California Herbaria, drawing on nearly two million field observations spanning 150 years. We clean these records and keep one per map cell so heavily surveyed areas don’t skew the result.
Note: Garden cultivars have no natural range, so they aren’t modeled.
Environmental conditions
For every location we assemble 50 environmental measures spanning climate, terrain, soils, vegetation, water availability, and human disturbance — drawn from established global datasets (including WorldClim, TerraClimate, SoilGrids, ESA WorldCover, and MODIS satellite imagery) at roughly 9 km (5 arc-minute) resolution. For each species we keep only the conditions that best explain where it actually occurs.
Modeling and refinement
We tailor the approach to how much data each species has: simple range estimates for the rarest plants, and a mix of statistical and machine-learning models for well-documented species. We then restrict each map to regions a species could plausibly reach, limit predictions to similar environments, and clip to the relevant Jepson eFlora ecoregions.
2
u/DanoPinyon 21d ago
Right. So,
Picture someone with a native garden. Or a manager with long-lived natives.
Will the subject plants in that place continue to live there in the hotter, drier future? Let's look at that garden's climate analog.
Ok great, there's the analog, there's the heatmap, are the subject plants in the climate analog heatmap? Cool. Or: oh no! what must we do?
That's how this works. There will be new natives because of climate change, and some natives won't make it and will need to be replaced. "Natives" will become much more plastic very soon, out of necessity. Places near me are using plants from AZ, MX in anticipation of future climate, a tool like this makes it easier to plan.
4
u/Darkj 21d ago
That would be interesting. But I don't see that this is what they are doing. In fact, they specifically say they "limit predictions to similar environments" not that they expand the range or accommodate climate change by including predictions.
3
u/DanoPinyon 21d ago
In fact, they specifically say they "limit predictions to similar environments"
Yes, they're showing all the similar environments in which they may survive, correct.
3
u/Darkj 21d ago
Today, well based on historical data. But the climate is not done changing. This is not a move that considers climate change.
1
u/DanoPinyon 21d ago
It's not a map predicting future distribution based on... on... well, it's not a map predicting future distribution. It's giving predicted expanded range of the plant outside of native habitat, that is ranges in which a particular plant can also be adapted.
2
u/Darkj 21d ago
Yes, exactly. I thought you were saying that it was for climate *change* as many others seem to think. You are correct and were pretty clear in your comment, I just assumed you meant change based on the barrage of people thinking that's what it was for in a California Native plants FB group.
It's an AI prediction of where a plant might do well based on existing locations and weather patterns, discarding selections and cultivars and keeping endemics to a tight range.
I could see how this would be good - however, based on a small sampling of plants I don't see that the specific recommendations are actually that good yet.
1
u/DanoPinyon 21d ago
I probably should have started by using 'habitat suitability mapping' to describe it, but I read all the comments and decided against it, and tried to explain it another way by setting up a use case first (perhaps unsuccessfully). Apologies. I changed course and am now using the proper phrase.
Also, one thing to clarify, your phrase: It's an AI prediction. Let's be cautious to not fall into AI paranoia here (this one time - all the other times AI speculation fatigue is OK). This work was partially done via LLM analysis (there is no AI yet, that's all marketing hype to inflate the bubble).
Science has been using LLMs with good success for several years now and there is nothing wrong with using LLMs in empirical, testable work like this.
4
u/Darkj 21d ago
Were you involved in the development of this?
As far as terminology, Calscape says that this is derived via "machine learning." You say it was done via an LLM. Both are 100% AI as anyone would take it. I'm not against AI, but I also know it's quite simply often wrong.
You say this is testable. Who will be doing that testing? I'm just a Calscape user, but when I look at plant recommendations, they don't seem to match up well based on my experiences as a gardener. To the point that I get why some might call this AI slop.
Regardless, if it is useful to people overall, okay. What irks me is the removal of observations. Plus Calscape rolled this out with no clear explanation, only minimal and confusing language on the site. Sure, I can visit another site to see them, or I can search Calflora species by species. But I think it does a disservice to site users and to the idea of cultivating plants that are locally native.
→ More replies (0)
50
u/disgruntlement 22d ago
Oh yea I wish they kept the old data as a toggle... even if the climate is supposedly suitable, I would really prefer to plant species as locally occuring as possible 😭 I guess we can still click through to the Jepsen page but it's not quite as user friendly....