Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
University of California
Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources

Posts Tagged: plants

New UC California Naturalists inspire care for nature in San Diego County

Nearly 200 residents trained in past seven years by program, a part of UC Environmental Stewards  

Tammah Watts poses with her book, Keep Looking Up: A Guide to the Powerful Healing of Birdwatching. All photos by Saoimanu Sope.

On one of her darkest days, Tammah Watts stood in front of her kitchen sink to fill a pitcher of water. Outside of her window, the San Marcos resident noticed a flutter in the distance. She spotted a small yellow bird emerge from the tree and her eyes grew in admiration.

Bird-watching from her kitchen window became an escape for Watts while she was temporarily homebound after a surgery. It's where she found connection beyond the interior space of her home.

“I started noticing other birds that had always been there. The yard didn't change, but my mind and my perspective did,” she said.

Eager to learn more and expose others to her new hobby and its healing power, Watts joined the University of California Environmental Stewards program, a statewide program housed under UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, to become a certified California Naturalist.

The program offers two environmental education certification courses: the California Naturalist course, which introduces people to the wonders of California's unique ecology and engages the public in the study and stewardship of the state's natural communities, and a separate Climate Stewards course.

One of the many strengths of the program is that it allows people from diverse backgrounds to find common ground in nature even if how they became interested varies, said Eliot Freutel, a community education specialist for the UC Environmental Stewards program in Southern California.

 “Our partners that help us administer the course are organizations that already have access to the public and provide informal science education, such as natural history museums or Audubon societies,” Freutel added.

Paige DeCino (left), Eliot Freutel (center) and Karen Merrill (right).

Welcoming a new cohort of environmental stewards

In early March, the longest-standing California Naturalist course in San Diego County graduated 25 new members, Watts being one of them, under Karen Merrill and Paige DeCino's instruction. For seven years, Merrill and DeCino have served as co-instructors at the Buena Vista Audubon Nature Center in Oceanside and graduated 166 members prior to their most recent and final class.

Transitioning into retirement, DeCino and Merrill reflected on their seven years of service and are proud to see younger and more diverse faces join the California Naturalist program. Tucker Shelton, who recently graduated alongside his mom, is among the few young people who have joined the program over the years. A love for nature began when Shelton discovered tide pools when he was just a boy. At 14 years old, Shelton wants to inspire a generation of youth with a passion and care for nature.

“When you're younger and your brain is still developing, you're the most interested in new things. If you find a passion at a young age, you'll most likely grow up with it becoming a part of you,” said Tucker, whose capstone project focuses on an essay about the endangered Townsend's big-eared bat and uses stamp art to raise awareness. His art will be featured and sold at an upcoming exhibit and all proceeds will be donated to the Volcan Mountain Wilderness Preserve in Julian.

Hannah Marquez, another recent graduate, was born and raised in San Diego. She values its cultural diversity and believes connecting the public to nature begins with language. In working with Tecolote Canyon Natural Park and Nature Center in Mission Valley to establish an updated native plant library, Marquez is providing relevant information and resources in English and Spanish.

Hannah Marquez

“A lot of people aren't comfortable using technology, and relying on Google Translate isn't going to cut it,” said Marquez, adding that her parents' limited English inspired this project.

Marquez hopes to interest more people in growing native plants in their backyard and believes accessible information is the first step to doing so.

“This has been so rewarding for us,” said Merrill. “Typically, our students are already involved in the community, but for those who aren't, it's amazing to see them become a part of the community and engage in a way that they haven't before.”

DeCino agreed and said that she really hopes to find new instructors to keep the momentum of California Naturalists in San Diego County alive. “Even though we're retiring, we'll still be around here and there, but its important to us that we pass the torch,” DeCino said.

Students present a capstone project to their cohort and instructors to showcase what they've learned and how they'll engage the community as certified California Naturalists.

The future of California Naturalists in San Diego County

What's next for San Diego County, you ask?

“We definitely want to expand in the area. But right now, we're looking for alums who are interested in taking over the program held at Buena Vista Audubon Nature Center,” Freutel said. “I'm also hoping to secure more partnerships throughout San Diego County so that the course is offered in various places, not just North County, which can lead to accessibility concerns.”

Like other students, Marquez commuted an hour, each way, to participate in the UC Environmental Stewards program. “It's a worthwhile course, one that helps people have a positive impact in their own community,” said Freutel. 

For Watts, helping people find healing and connection to the world around them – an experience her book, a guide to the powerful healing of bird-watching, discusses – is a priority. “It's not just about watching birds,” she said. “It's about noticing the tree the bird lives in, and the ground the tree is growing in.” 

During a nature walk that Watts led for a group of kids, she noticed two sets of footprints in the dirt. Immediately, she could differentiate the two. “One belonged to a raccoon and the other belonged to a deer,” Watts said. “I was so excited that I could tell them apart, and I promise I didn't know this before taking the CalNat course.”

To learn how you can join the UC Environmental Stewards program and become a California Naturalist or Climate Steward, visit: https://calnat.ucanr.edu/Take_a_class/

Tucker Shelton (left) and his mother, Kari (right), with their California Naturalist pins.

Posted on Friday, March 22, 2024 at 11:37 AM
Focus Area Tags: Environment, Health, Natural Resources

Car fumes, weeds pose double-whammy for fire-loving native plants

In September 2013, a few months after the Springs Fire blazed through the Santa Monica Mountains in Southern California, a team led by Justin Valliere started laying out plots to study how the combination of invasive weeds and air pollution would impact the resurgence of native plants that usually flourish after a wildfire. Their tests tried to mimic nitrogen coming from vehicle exhaust in nearby Los Angeles. Photo by Justin Valliere, UC Davis

Wildflower displays threatened

Northwest of Los Angeles, springtime brings native wildflowers to bloom in the Santa Monica Mountains. These beauties provide food for insects, maintain healthy soil and filter water seeping into the ground – in addition to offering breathtaking displays of color.

They're also good at surviving after wildfire, having adapted to it through millennia. But new research shows wildflowers that usually would burst back after a blaze and a good rain are losing out to the long-standing, double threat of city smog and nonnative weeds.

A recent study led by Justin Valliere, assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences, found that native wildflowers and other plants that typically flourish following a fire were, instead, replaced by invasive plants on land that received the kind of nitrogen contained in vehicle emissions.

Shooting stars, or Dodecatheon clevelandii, is typical of the native plants that bloom in even higher abundance following a fire and a good rain in the Santa Monica Mountains of southern California. Photo by Justin Valliere, UC Davis

“Many native plants in fire-prone areas rely on fire, and some are entirely dependent on it. Some are even most abundant after a fire,” said Valliere, a UC Cooperative Extension specialist in invasive weed and restoration ecology. “But we found that these fire-following species may be especially vulnerable to the combination of nitrogen pollution and invasive plants.”

That's part of the reason why native plants in these mountains have been declining.

Seeds – banked in the soil and waiting to sprout

The problem faced by native plants can be compared to a drawn-down bank account: Funds withdrawn are not being replaced.

It starts with fire, an important ecological process, Valliere said. Flames burn through plants on the surface and return their nutrients to the soil. Seeds sleeping in the ground wait for the next rain to sprout, then use those nutrients to grow.

“Plant diversity is often highest in growing seasons immediately after a site burns,” he said.

But invading plants have many advantages over native ones. They often sprout earlier, grow faster and create more seeds, all while tolerating drought.

“They're like cheaters,” Valliere said. “They don't follow the same rules.”

Nitrogen, too, is an important piece of every plant's nutrition. They all get a fertilizing boost from nitrogen that floats up in vehicle emissions and falls to the ground. But the invaders use nitrogen and other nutrients to grow faster, winning the race for water and sunlight. As a result, fewer native plants reach maturity, producing fewer seeds that keep their populations thriving.

When the bank balance reaches zero

The 2013 Springs Fire gave Valliere a unique opportunity to study the combined impacts of wildfire and extra nitrogen. He and colleagues from UC Riverside and the National Park Service created test plots in the Santa Monica Mountains where the fire had burned. Then, they added nitrogen to the soil to mimic the amount and type that LA's smog would deposit. Over the study's three years, native plants that typically would have flourished after wildfire instead declined even faster in the plots with added nitrogen.

Native seeds sprouted, but didn't flower. Over time, the soil's bank of seeds drew down.

In spring of 2015, the area that had been burned by the 2013 Springs Fire was again in bloom. The clearwater cryptantha shown here, or Cryptantha intermedia, is a native plant that blooms all over California. It is especially abundant in the coastal south. Photo by Justin Valliere, UC Davis

“Each seed has one chance to flower and reproduce,” Valliere said. “If a seed grows and gets outcompeted, that seed has lost its chance to replenish the seed bank.”

Without the chance to replenish their bank account, native plants will die out, and the whole ecosystem will be thrown out of balance.

“There is inherent value in biodiversity,” Valliere said. “These invasive weeds could prevent the re-establishment of native shrubs after fire, sometimes forever altering the plant community.”

The loss of native plants can have cascading effects on the larger environment, he added. Problems can include the loss of native bees that feed on the flowers, and mudslides when rain makes hillsides unstable.

This problem is likely to repeat in similar areas where biodiversity is highest after wildfires – including parts of the Mediterranean basin, southern Africa and Australia. The addition of city smog “could have serious consequences for the biodiversity of fire-prone ecosystems worldwide,” Valliere warned.

Read the paper, “Nitrogen deposition suppresses ephemeral post-fire plant diversity,” by Justin Valliere, Irina Irvine and Edith Allen.

This article was first published on the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences website.

Posted on Wednesday, February 21, 2024 at 9:54 AM
  • Author: Grace Fruto, UC Davis
  • Author: Trina Kleist, UC Davis
Focus Area Tags: Environment, Natural Resources

Gearing Up for 13th Annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day

Meet the scientists! Ask questions! Plans are underway for the 13th annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day, a free "Super Science Day" for the public to see science in action and learn about 10 UC Davis museums and collections. The...

Entomologist Jeff Smith, who curates the Lepidoptera collection at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, shows butterfly specimens to guests. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Entomologist Jeff Smith, who curates the Lepidoptera collection at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, shows butterfly specimens to guests. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Entomologist Jeff Smith, who curates the Lepidoptera collection at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, shows butterfly specimens to guests. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Billy Thein of the California Raptor Center introduces a golden eagle to the crowd at a recent UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Billy Thein of the California Raptor Center introduces a golden eagle to the crowd at a recent UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Billy Thein of the California Raptor Center introduces a golden eagle to the crowd at a recent UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The Center for Plant Diversity creates a
The Center for Plant Diversity creates a "petting zoo" at which folks can pet a pine cone. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The Center for Plant Diversity creates a "petting zoo" at which folks can pet a pine cone. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Posted on Tuesday, January 9, 2024 at 4:38 PM
Focus Area Tags: Environment, Innovation, Natural Resources, Yard & Garden

Conjure Up A Moon Garden

In these winter months,while taking stock of the past year's gardening successes and planning next year's garden, why not consider adding a moon garden somewhere in your yard?  A moon garden incorporates reflective surfaces, light-colored flowers,...

In the Fall, the leaves of witch hazel 'Arnold Promise' reflect the light at night. J.C. Lawrence
In the Fall, the leaves of witch hazel 'Arnold Promise' reflect the light at night. J.C. Lawrence

In the Fall, the leaves of witch hazel 'Arnold Promise' reflect the light at night. J.C. Lawrence

Posted on Friday, December 1, 2023 at 5:00 AM
  • Author: Kim Schwind
Focus Area Tags: Yard & Garden

Residential Hedgerows

If you are planning to put some new plants in the ground now so they will be established when spring comes around, consider planting a hedgerow.  In urban and suburban areas, fences or hedges are typically used to define property lines, block...

Posted on Friday, November 24, 2023 at 5:00 AM
Focus Area Tags: Yard & Garden

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