Ecosystems

"One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.  Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to the laymen..."
- Aldo Leopold

California boasts an astounding amount of biodiversity across a wide variety of natural ecosystems.  Representative types of all six of the world's major biomes can be found in California: marine, freshwater, forest, grassland, desert and tundra.  The state is divided into eleven distinct geomorphic provinces and ten bioregions or ecoregions.  Upwards of one thousand distinct plant communities can be counted within these ecoregions, contributing to a brilliant tapestry of diverse ecosystems across the state.

Read more about:

On this page, you will find links to some of my most comprehensive writing, organized by ecoregion and ecosystem.

> Scroll to the bottom of the page to find links to articles about regions and ecosystems beyond California! <

Coastal Ecosystems

With roughly 840 miles of stunning coastline, California is home to a number of productive and fragile ecosystems that are intrinsically linked to the Pacific.  These include offshore ecosytems, rocky shore and intertidal ecosystems, estuaries and salt marshes, sandy beaches, coastal dunes, coastal prairie, and coastal sage scrub.  




Valley Grassland Ecosystems

Once widespread throughout the Great Central Valley, California's native grasslands, verdant flowering prairies of perennial bunchgrass and forbs, have been severely reduced to a few scattered pockets.








Wetland Ecosystems

Much of the Great Central Valley of California was once covered in seasonal wetland, fed by snowmelt from the Sierra.  In addition to freshwater marshes, California also boasts small remnants of salt marsh ecosystems, as well as a network of coastal estuaries and an extensively managed delta.







Riparian Ecosystems

A number of rivers, though considerably reduced, still wend their way across the Valley floor, charting ancient paths from the mountains to the sea as snowmelt from the Sierra finds its way to the Pacific.






The Mountains of California: 
Sierra Nevada, Klamath, Cascade and Coast Ranges

The mountains of California are rugged, beautiful and diverse landscapes, from rolling foothills to alpine peaks.  Ecosystems found here include chaparral, oak woodlands, coast redwood forests, montane forests, subalpine forests and alpine tundra, as well as freshwater lakes and streams.




Desert Ecosystems

Severely marginalized and underappreciated, California's three distinct desert ecosystems - the Mojave, Great Basin and Sonoran or Colorado deserts - support a vast array of biodiversity.  The deserts are home to a surprising variety of wildlife and put on stunning wildflower shows during the spring of rainy years!  In the out-of-the-way, seldom visited corner of northeastern California lies the Modoc Plateau, an area of volcanic lava flows, patchy forests and sagebrush scrub unlike any other part of the state, though it technically lies within the Great Basin Desert.



Beyond California

As much as I love the nature and landscapes of California, wanderlust occasionally takes me beyond our borders into very different lands, where I am continually dazzled by our planet's wealth of natural beauty and riches.

Arizona










South Carolina















Europe












Suggested Reading

> For a brief introduction: The California Naturalist Handbook
>For a closer look: A Natural History of California (Allan A. Schoenherr)
>To plumb the depths of knowledge: Ecosystems of California (edited by Harold Mooney & Erika Zavaleta)


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