#1 Describe your chosen ecosystem

What are the living (biotic) creatures in the ecosystem? Choose three (or more) to answer:

  1. What are some of the tree or other large plant species in this system?

- Cercocarpus betuloides – shrub/ small tree (mountain mahogany)

- Arctostaphylos glauca tree (bigberry manzanita)

  1. What are some of the smaller plant or wildflower species in the system?

- Wildflower: clarkia, gilia, nemophila

- Perennial sage scrub (aristida aka purple three-awn)

  1. What are the animals or birds that live in the ecosystem?

- Birds: California Thrasher, Pacific-slope flycatcher, Bell’s vireo, Bullock’s oriole, hooded oriole, song sparrow, lesser and American goldfinch, northern flicker, nuttall’s and downy woodpecker; sometimes common ground doves, blue grosbeak, lazuli bunting.. California quail, bushtit, cactus wren (endangered)

- Arroyo toad (endangered), orange-throated whiptail lizard, peregrine falcon

What are the non-living (abiotic) parts of the ecosystem? Check out our Resource Guide at the bottom of this activity to find out more about how their relationship to your chosen ecosystem, and then try describing them:

  1. Soils – 26.6% placentia sandy loam, thick surface, medium acid, moderately well drained, available water storage in profile is low (about 3.8in)

- 73.4% vista course sandy loam, 9-15 percent slopes, eroded, well drained, low runoff, available water storage is low about 4.9 inches

  • Parent material- residuum weathered from grandodiorite and quartz-diorite
  • Vista soils are moderately deep, well drained soils that formed in materialed weathered from decomposed granitic rocks… vista soils are on hills and mountainous uplands and have slopes of 2-85 percent
  1. Rock - granite
  2. Weather – frost-free period of 200-300 days

JanFebMarAprMayJun

Average high in °F:696971757882

Average low in °F:434547515558

Av. precipitation in inch:3.033.432.641.140.240.12

JulAugSepOctNovDec

Average high in °F:878987817468

Average low in °F:626362554842

Av. precipitation in inch:0.080.080.20.711.182.13

Escondido weather averages:

Annual high temperature:77.5°F

Annual low temperature:52.6°F

Average temperature:65.05°F

Average annual precipitation - rainfall:14.98 inch

  1. Water (rain, water table) – mean annual precipitation, 12-18in
  2. Sun - The climate in the valley is desert like with hot days and long exposure to sunlight
  3. Wind – averages under 10mph year round (rare occurrence of 15+ in December)
  4. What provides the food for the living creatures in the ecosystem?... general example would be sun to grass  grasshoppers  birds and frogs  snakes  birds  owls/hawks  animal dies decomposed by worms, bacteria and nutrients are released into the soil and for the grass to use

#2 Thinking about Human Cultures & Ecosystems

Notes:

- Pre-Columbian CA to 18th Century- Native peoples continually managed their environment, tending and cultivating the land through controlled burnings, weeding, pruning, tilling, irrigation, and selective replanting.

- 1823- 1834 (Spanish Rule- secularization)- Native Californians provided most of the labor for the emergent Spanish ranching economy. Some worked as vaqueros herding cattle

How do you think the ecosystem continues to influence their dietary practices? Practicing old techniques with modernization… updating tools and learned methods of hunting, fishing; continuation of gathering native plants, cooking, supply, etc

How do you think these food practices influenced the landscape? We owe much of our landscape and native plant preservation to the Native Americans of our area, and their focus on preservation of the land, water

We have very detailed information about the Kumeyaay of the San Pasqual Valley from the source,

“The Kumeyaay San Pasqual Indians who re-settled the San Pasqual Valley numbered 81 men, women, and children. Twenty-four male adults, their wives, 1 single male, 9 widowers, 1 widow and her daughter, and 21 children made up the original community. More importantly for the survival of San Pasqual, the Kumeyaay who were to develop the pueblo were chosen because of their impressive array of skills and diligent nature. The 1835 census of the pueblo listed the trade of the male settlers as:

6 vaqueros, 10 arrieros (muleteers), 2 carpinteros, 1 herrero (blacksmith), 2 tejedores (weavers), 1 carbonero (charcoal maker), 2 molenderos (Millers), 1 cardador (carder of wool), 5 labradores (farmers/plowmen), 2 gamuseros (leatherworkers), and 1 quesero (cheese maker), for a total of 34.”

I’ve learned that they built dams in the area… it is clear they worked with the land and the creek in the valley, for fishing, and the land being very desirable for farming. I would definitely consider their land management practices sustainable, and truly practiced agroecology in that they implemented all they have learned from their families, while also learning and developing new skills as the rule and terrain changed a number of times over the years.

I also came across another great site that would be cool to share with the group!

There are many examples from that site, but I’ll focus on sagebrush because it is a very abundant native plant in the region. The Kumeyaay would dry out the leaves from the sagebrush and use them as tea leaves. They also were able to use sage as construction material – such as for roofing. Sage also helps to preserve food…

#3 Current Ecosystem Management

Land Tenure:

Currently, who “owns” the land? Single-family residence… but the city of San Diego “owns” the land

There are some cultures that do not believe that land can be “owned”, they see it as a common good. What do you think about this concept?

Hm... I think that having “landowners” is a smart way to delegate the land, but of course, there should be specific guidelines for said landowner to follow in regards to the environment and the community. We see this problem a lot in zoning and vineyard management, specifically in California and usually in the news, in the Napa area. Vineyards and wineries and growing rapidly, thus bringing in mass amount of people. Big time vineyard managers have influence over the local government, and community members are more than displeased when the vineyard/wineries do not follow the permits.

Colonization also altered who gets access to land, particularly indigenous people and peasants. What are your reflections on how that affects land ownership today?

Of course I wish that the indigenous people and peasants were not kicked off their land, and it is very sad. It very much affects land ownership today, as now that land is not passed along within their families. Of course I hope for the indigenous people to gain access to their land they once owned, and for example, reject the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Land Management:

What kind of farming or other land management practices could be practiced here with the least amount of impact?

- In our area, we have much intensive agriculture (row crops and citrus), dairies, and vineyards.. everyone should be using organic pesticides… which relates to the next question, so we keep our soil clean, animals healthy, and don’t have drifting non-organic pesticides to our neighbors land  (If someone is farming the system, or near it, what kinds of farming practices are they using?)

How do you think this affects the biotic (living) and abiotic (nonliving) factors (fires) of the ecosystem?

We don’t want the added cost of genetically modified seeds and with that the pesticides needed to sustain those seeds… this really affects everything in the ecosystem... All the biotic factors whether it be the plants and animals they are directly affected by what we put on our plants and in the soil, and for example a top-of-mind abiotic factor in our ecosystem is wildfires... We have llamas that graze the land to keep the brush down in helping control any future fires... We don’t want those seeds and pesticides anywhere near the llamas as it could be detrimental