Collaborative Research: The Persistence of Biodiversity in Southern California under Future Land-Use Scenarios

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Habitat loss and fragmentation are the most serious threats to biodiversity worldwide. Furthermore, habitat loss due to urbanization brings with it myriad other threats that exacerbate impacts on biodiversity. In the United States, habitat loss due to urbanization is more widespread and endangers more species than any other human activity. Consequently, the identification of traits that deem some species more vulnerable to extinction than others has become the Holy Grail of conservation biology because of the potential for such traits to serve as measurable surrogates for extinction risk. This project will identify the life history traits of plants that are predictive of extinction risk in the face of the top three threats to plant species in the United States - habitat loss, altered fire regimes and competition with invasive species. This identification will be achieved by connecting population and landscape models to extensive plant demographic data, realistic land-use change projections and the effects of the major processes threatening plants in the Californian floristic region, a global biodiversity hotspot.The results of this work will be communicated to an existing network of public and private land managers, conservation specialists, and policy makers in southern California. Existing collaborations will assure direct communication of scientific results to those agencies responsible for regulating conservation plans in the study area and elsewhere.