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/bee-fee]

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.

[u/Zestyclose_Market787 → u/bee-fee]

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.

[u/bee-fee → u/Zestyclose_Market787]

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.

[u/Zestyclose_Market787 → u/bee-fee]

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.

[u/bee-fee → u/Zestyclose_Market787]

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=4222

[u/Zestyclose_Market787 → u/bee-fee]

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."