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The six habitat systems for which the California Central Coast Joint Venture have identified in its strategic planning effort offer points of entry into prioritization of conservation action. While these systems are interconnected, with actions taken in one influencing another, highlighting these spaces of need helps the C3JV and its partners to identify critical gaps, integrate existing actors, and discover the C3JV niche. Explore each of the six conservation targets in more detail below.
Conservation Spaces
No terrestrial habitat in the C3JV region hosts greater vertebrate species richness than oak woodlands, alone supporting more than 330 species, including as many as 110 breeding birds. With the addition of hardwood rangeland and grassland components archetypal of the Oak and Prairie landscapes of the Central Coast, vertebrate species richness exceeds 450 species. This diversity, at least in part, is attributable to the habitat heterogeneity and productivity in oak and grassland systems, where the production of acorns drives significant avian species richness, while forb and grassland endemics characteristic of the Mediterranean hardwood rangelands support diverse species assemblages driven by dynamic disturbance such as fire. As a significant component of the California Floristic Province, diversity in the C3JV is augmented by endemism, exemplified by the occurrence of six of the seven California endemic oak species, among a total of fifteen oak species present on the Central Coast.
Oak and Prairie community types.
Though composing a small fraction of the C3JV Region, riparian and freshwater wetland systems of the Central Coast can be characterized as perhaps the most important habitat for landbirds relative to their extent in the JV region.
Riparian habitats occur on the margins of freshwater features, embodying the transition zone between riverine, lacustrine and upland ecosystems. Highly productive, riparian systems play an outsized role on the landscape, particularly in semi-arid landscapes that characterize much of the C3JV region.
Freshwater wetlands include a diverse array of landscape features including rivers and streams, lakes (including natural and artificial), vernal pools, swamps, ponds, sloughs, and freshwater marshes. Importantly, coastal estuaries, lagoons, brackish and saltwater marshes are included in the Coastal and Marine Conservation Target. Major waterways include the Salinas, Santa Ynez, Pajaro, San Benito, Nacimiento and Santa Maria rivers, while hundreds of smaller perennial and thousands of intermittent streams further comprise the surface hydrology of the region. Perennial streams are typical to the coastal slopes, draining into the Pacific, while interior and eastern drainages are more commonly intermittent.
Riparian and Freshwater wetland community types.
Comprising nearly one third of the terrestrial landscape of the C3JV, shrublands are an iconic and largely endemic habitat assemblage responsible for much of California’s floristic and faunal diversity. Shrub communities flourish under varying moisture, temperature, nutrient and disturbance gradients within the region’s Mediterranean climatic regime, resulting in a mosaic of numerous scrub and chaparral compositions. This mosaic can sharply intersect with other Conservation Targets, principally oak woodlands and savannah and conifer-hardwood habitats, often with distinct allelopathy-derived edge conditions. Chaparral, the most extensive shrub-dominated community, is often further classified floristically by a dominant species combination (e.g. Chamise-Redshank Chaparral), unique edaphic-influenced conditions (e.g. Serpentine and Dune Chaparral), elevational gradients (e.g. Montane Chaparral), and climate variation (Maritime Chaparral). Coastal Scrub, sometimes referred to as soft-chaparral due to a tendency of soft-leaved shrubs such as black sage (Salvia mellifera) to dominate.
Scrub and Chaparral community types.
The Central Coast is especially rich in conifer and mixed hardwood diversity, owing to significant endemism, the intersection of several ecoregions, and an abundance of microhabitats influenced by aspect, soils and summer fog. Paleoendemics, including coastal redwood, Monterey pine and Santa Lucia fir, once existed across much larger ranges but are now highly restricted to climatic conditions of the past. Conversely, numerous cypress species represent neoendemics having adapted to unique micro-sites in isolation from each other, resulting in relatively recent speciation events. The Central Coast hosts the meeting place of the cool forests of northern California, dominated by coastal redwood and Douglas fir, the drier southern and rocky mountainous interior of yellow pines (Ponderosa and Jeffrey), as well as the far western extent of pinyon-juniper woodlands. While equating to less than 10% of the C3JV region, the diversity of habitats represented by conifer and mixed hardwood forests and woodlands greatly enhances the region’s avian diversity.
Conifer and Mixed Hardwood community types.
No terrestrial habitat in the C3JV region hosts greater vertebrate species richness than oak woodlands, alone supporting more than 330 species, including as many as 110 breeding birds. With the addition of hardwood rangeland and grassland components archetypal of the Oak and Prairie landscapes of the Central Coast, vertebrate species richness exceeds 450 species. This diversity, at least in part, is attributable to the habitat heterogeneity and productivity in oak and grassland systems, where the production of acorns drives significant avian species richness, while forb and grassland endemics characteristic of the Mediterranean hardwood rangelands support diverse species assemblages driven by dynamic disturbance. As a significant component of the California Floristic Province, diversity in the C3JV is augmented by endemism, exemplified by the occurrence of six of the seven California endemic oak species, among a total of fifteen oak species present on the Central Coast.
Urban and Intensive Agriculture community types.
With over 500 miles of coastline, one of the most defining features of the C3JV is the dynamic meeting of land and sea. With a steep continental shelf not far off shore, cool waters of the California Current swell with biomass, supporting a plethora of life, including a vibrant fishery. The jagged, bluffed coastline and innumerable islets host rookeries of breeding and loafing seabirds. Bar-built estuaries support endemic salmonids and migrating shorebirds, while numerous embayments shelter marinas, stopover habitats and critical wintering grounds. Some of the largest concentration of coastal dunes occur here, along with miles of sandy beaches, host to threatened birds, endemic plants and invertebrates, and many thousands of resident and visiting beachgoers attracted to this dynamic juxtaposition. The Coastal and Marine systems of the Central Coast are diverse, rich, and under great pressure- invariably a key priority land and seascape for Joint Venture Partners.
