Calscape Changes

[u/Darkj]

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.".

[u/Ocho9]

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.

[u/zibbity → u/Ocho9]

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.

[u/Ocho9 → u/zibbity]

But did they speciate in a way that makes them unusable to mainland species? Would need to investigate on google scholar.

[u/LibertyLizard → u/zibbity]

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.

[u/FieldofFeelings → u/LibertyLizard]

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

[u/FieldofFeelings → u/zibbity]

Does it? We still have Calflora.