Restoration in type-converted and heavily disturbed chaparral: lessons learned

Abstract

A wide range of disturbances including recreation, utility corridors, too frequent fire and invasive plants have led to the type conversion of native chaparral habitats to non-native grasslands on the Angeles National Forest. These often compounding disturbances have led to the recent planning, implementation and monitoring of a wide variety of restoration techniques across the forest. Restoration techniques have included imprinting, hydroseeding, container planting and aggressive weed control with a variety of results. Factors influencing these results are adequacy of planning, timelines, weather patterns, hydrology and soil conditions, pre-project invasive plant infestations, availability of materials and personnel, and as always, cost. The highest performing restoration sites appear to be those that either had a low presence of non-natives beforehand or had aggressive weed control in the first two/three years of restoration, combined with the use of enough genetically appropriate, early seral native plants introduced to the site as container plants at the correct time in the early fall and watered consistently.

Parent Publication

• Proceedings of the chaparral restoration workshop, California

Citation

VinZant, Katie. 2019. Restoration in type-converted and heavily disturbed chaparral: lessons learned. In: Narog, Marcia, tech. coord. Proceedings of the chaparral restoration workshop, California. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-265. Albany, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station: 67-83.