James PHAPHONE - Sage Brush Diminishment and Gnatcatcher Endangerment in Riverside County

     My research topic is on the decreasing presence of California Coastal Sage Scrub in the Riverside County area and the effects of its disappearance following the county's founding in 1893. Coastal sage scrub is a community of native plants and growth that has been declining over the years due to increased urbanization and changing land uses. With its disappearance, grasslands and other exotic plants have instead dominated the landscape, which has had an effect on native animal species that live within the coastal sage scrub habitat. Despite conservation efforts, coastal sage scrub continues to disappear, marking the long term effects that people had on the land by introducing exotic species and altering the land for their own use. As a person that lives in Riverside, I wasn't aware of this issue until originally looking into the Jurupa Oak for my research project and getting ideas from Professor Biggs. Through more research and getting more acquainted with the topic, I think this historical issue is important to look at because it acts as a case study for the effects of urbanization and European settlement on native ecosystems. It can also perhaps serve to show the ineffectiveness of  certain conservation policies and efforts and offer up better ones.







The California Gnatcatcher, a native bird species that is now endangered because of the disappearance of California coastal sage scrub.










An example of a coastal sage scrub community.


    The first source I used to research the decline of coastal sage scrub is a 1998 study by Richard A. Minnich and Raymond J. Dezzani titled "Historical Decline of Coastal Sage Scrub in the Riverside-Perris Plain, California." The study looks at the rate of decline in coastal sage scrub in the Riverside area over the course of 60 years and offers up possible causes for the decline.

    The second source I came across was another study done in 2010 by Xiongwen Chen, Bai-Lian Li, and Michael F. Allen titled "Characterizing Urbanization, and Agricultural and Conservation Land-Use Change in Riverside County California, USA," which looks at the changes in land use in Riverside from 1984 to 2002. This study shows the progressive change from agricultural to urban landscapes and those effects on coastal sage brush.

    The third source was a study in 2008 by Matt V. Talluto and Katharine N. Suding titled "Historical Change in Coastal Sage Scrub in Southern California, USA in relation to Fire Frequency and Air Pollution," which actually studies the fire frequency and changes in land composition that led to the decline in coastal sage scrub. The study links urbanization to the environmental changes that led to the domination of grasslands that pushed out the coastal sage scrub.

    The fourth source is the All About Birds website article on the California Gnatcatcher, which gives information on the biology of the Gnatcatcher and its history in California. This offers up information about its diet and habits, which is important to consider when thinking about the connection between the decline of coastal sage scrub and the bird's population.

    

My research until now has found a lot of scientific facts about the changes in the land, but in the coming weeks I want to focus on researching the history of land development in Riverside county. I also want to research the history of the California Gnatcatcher and try to tie the two together, relating the history of Riverside's development to the changes in coastal sage scrub and the eventual endangerment of the California Gnatcatcher in the 1990s.





Comments

  1. David BiggsFebruary 9, 2021 at 11:10 AM

    James has dropped the course! So please don't add comments on this post!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Aaron RendonFebruary 9, 2021 at 6:15 PM

    Hey James. There’s one main thing I’m really looking forward to in regards to your topic. I didn’t see a single thing involving lawsuits! I definitely think lawsuits and court cases make it easier to write about a history, but they can get a bit stale. The argument should be really interesting with the fact that it’s about a specific plant rather than a specific animal or environmental issue like air pollution or hazardous waste, for example. Learning about the slow degradation of that single scrub in that single area will make for a good way to learn about how that single issue gradually and quietly happened over the course of time during which there was an increase in land use. More importantly, this will allow you to still get very specific over the long period of time in which this history takes place, assuming you choose to go with the 60 year period discussed in the 1998 study you found. Speaking of which, it looks like you’ve got some good sources. One I am particularly interested in is the one regarding fire and air pollution. It will go to show that even without intending, we humans can cause a lot more damage than we think. If you’re looking for more sources, BIOSIS is a UCR library database that includes lots of journal articles regarding botany, entomology and agriculture.

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