Fire-Causing Nonnative Plant Species in the Santa Monica Mountain Ranges

Southern California is plagued with near-annual fires that burn through natural wildlife areas and threaten to endanger the lives and structural safety of residents that live near these areas. It is an academic understanding that non-native plants that have proliferated in these areas are the main cause for these potentially destructive fire. They outcompete native plants for space and threaten larger fires as they have not naturally adapted to California’s dry and hot summers. When dried out, they are particularly flammable in comparison to native species.

Our efforts were part of a collaborative effort with undergraduate students from UCLA to categorize and monitor the returning species in areas that had been swept by previous fires. The hope was to determine what native and non-native species returned to areas and study if the species landscape was altering. This required direct communication with other collaborators as well as receiving and documenting photo data in the form of conservation plots in successive monthly increments. These students would attempt on-site identification of the species present in an effort to aid our documentation. Back in the lab we would cross examine, the onsite observations with the first-hand photos in order to better map out the species distribution of this area.

After which we would compile a database with the changing landscape of this region using determined keys based on plant species and genus. We had to develop keys that be informative to other researchers as well as having visual information for untrained teams of students to find the plants described. These keys would be used by continuing professionals and the database could be used for comparitive research in the aftermath of the next eventual fire in this region.

More information can be found here: CNPA Publication