The La Graciosa thistle—a plant in the sunflower family—and the Nipomo Mesa lupine—an herb in the legume family—are endangered plants only found in the coastal dune ecosystem of the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes Complex. And both now have blueprints for recovery, said Kristie Scarazzo, a botanist with the Ventura office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“As broad brush as I can be, each of these species is a regional endemic, meaning they only occur in California. They are limited to the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes Complex, one of the largest dune ecosystems left in the United States. Their habitats are extremely rare and endangered,” Scarazzo said.
The La Graciosa thistle grows in the wetland features of the dunes, and the Nipomo Mesa lupine grows in a 2-square-mile area in the Nipomo Mesa. Their survival relies on wind and rainflow to move the sediments and sands in the dunes and the relationship that they have to the soil, she said.
Real estate and agricultural development, invasive species, groundwater loss, and climate change have negatively impacted the plants’ ecosystems, causing them to be added to the endangered species list at the state and federal levels. Recovery plans work to get the plants off the endangered species list—under the U.S. Endangered Species Act—by laying out a step-by-step, detailed process, similar to following recipes in a cookbook, Scarazzo said.
“When you have an endangered plant, the first step is to downlist it; meaning, if we met the criteria, they would go from endangered to threatened,” she said. “Once we downlist, we want to meet the delisting criteria.”
There need to be nine new thistle colonies and three new lupine colonies—which both need to be stable or increasing for 10 consecutive years—in order for the plants to be downlisted from endangered to threatened. To be removed from the list entirely, the thistle needs an additional 13 colonies and the lupine needs five more colonies.
“We need more of them out there. The smaller the population size, the more at risk it is for loss and extinction; these are extremely at-risk species. If you had a catastrophic loss, or something really bad happened, it could easily wipe out remaining populations. We are focusing on finding the places that meet the requirements of the species, and a lot of habitat restoration,” she said.
The total estimated cost for the thistle’s plan implementation is about $3 million, and the lupine’s plan is about $7 million, which come from Fish and Wildlife funds and potential grant funding, Scarazzo said. By having the recovery plans completed after a three-year process of research and collaboration, Scarazzo hopes to receive funding and gain potential partnerships to further the plants’ improvement.
“One of the reasons that having a recovery plan is so good is because it enables us to leverage grant funding. It allows us to refer to actions in the recovery plan, and go out to try and get grant funding,” she added. “California is a plant biodiversity hotspot; it’s our legacy. I want people to be proud of the diversity here. These dunes are one in a million, there’s not many left … . We want to conserve the remaining areas that are left, and not have any areas be lost.”
This article appears in Dec 30, 2021 – Jan 6, 2022.