Inventory & Monitoring

Ecosystem Conceptual Model

The workshops and discussion groups identified significant ecosystems drivers and stressors in the Southern California Mediterranean-type ecosystem.  Five primary categories of “ecosystem drivers” – forces or conditions either intrinsic or extrinsic to an ecosystem that have large scale influences on the processes or components of an ecosystem – were identified for Mediterranean Coast Network park ecosystems: parent materials, climate, fire, other impacts (anthropogenic drivers), and biological processes.  These were in turn subdivided into “ecosystem stressors” – significant activities, actions, events, or processes that can alter the organizational properties or integrity of ecosystems.  Ecological effects are the measurable components of the ecosystem that are most responsive to the effect of the stressors and that could be quantified and monitored over time.

The model focused on the resources and perspectives of the Santa Monica Mountains for several reasons:  First (except for water quality), no new monitoring would be proposed for the Channel Islands.  Secondly, of the three parks in the network, the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area most generally the diverse array of drivers, stressors, and ecological effects characteristic of the Mediterranean-type ecosystem of southern California. And third, of the two parks where new monitoring is to be implemented, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is approximately 200 times larger than Cabrillo National Monument.

While the model focuses on the Santa Monica Mountains, they are sufficiently general relative to processes in the southern California Mediterranean-type ecosystem to reflect conditions and relationships within Cabrillo National Monument and Channel Islands National Park as well.