I’ve been concerned about climate change for a while now, but my anxiety kicked into high gear after Copenhagen. That was when I realized that global warming was really going to happen, and was going to be really bad.
One thing that helped me out of the resulting funk was this article by Mark Hertsgaard: Why Seattle will stay dry when your city floods. It was adapted from a chapter in Hertsgaard’s new book, Hot: Living through the next fifty years on Earth. I liked the article so much I went out and bought the book. Then I bought three more copies, and have been inflicting them on innocent bystanders ever since. :-)
The book is about a concept I hadn’t heard much about before: climate change adaptation. Most of what I’ve read in the past about climate change concerns mitigation: reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid warming. Mitigation is hugely important, of course, but especially now that climate change has started happening, and appears to be happening more quickly and more severely than many scientists previously projected, we also need to talk about adaptation.
Adaptation is about preparing for the effects of climate change. Unlike mitigation, which is a collective effort that succeeds or fails based on the sum of human actions across the entire globe, adaptation is inherently local. If we start early enough and do the right kinds of adaptation, we can reduce the amount of suffering we and our descendants experience in our local community. Adaptation feels real, and concrete, whereas mitigation can sometimes feel hopelessly abstract. Adaptation feels like actually doing something.
Besides Hertsgaard’s book, I’ve been getting a lot of useful information from the following:
The California Climate Adaptation Strategy (PDF) is a state report that was published in 2009. It describes the impacts Californians can expect to experience on a statewide level, along with guidelines for adaptation. It’s pretty general, but it’s a start.
The following passage caught my eye:
The most effective adaptation strategies relate to short and long-term decisions. Most of these decisions are the responsibility of local community planning entities. As a result, communities with General Plans and Local Coastal Plans should begin, when possible, to amend their plans to assess climate change impacts, identify areas most vulnerable to these impacts, and develop reasonable and rational risk reduction strategies using the CAS as guidance.
I don’t think Carpinteria is doing enough in this area. I’ve started talking to other Carpinterians about the issue, though. We’ll see where that goes.
I’ve been reading Ron Russo’s Field Guide to Plant Galls of California and Other Western States. I first heard about the book several years ago from Andrea Adams-Morden, the head of the docent program at the Carpinteria Salt Marsh. It didn’t really excite my curiosity at first; I’d been drawn to the marsh by my interest in birds, and didn’t know much about plants and insects. Over time, though, as my appreciation of the marsh ecosystem grew, galls began to seem more interesting, and eventually I went ahead and bought Russo’s book.
I’m glad I did. Field Guide to Plant Galls is a book that combines lots of detailed technical information with an infectious sense of wonder. And it turns out that galls really are quite interesting.
Russo writes:
Galls are tumorlike grows of plant tissue produced by the host plants in response to the chemical and/or mechanical stimuli of invading organisms (fungi, mites, insects), resulting in accelerated production of plant growth hormones…
Since the galls of many insects (especially wasps and many flies) are specific to their species in size, shape, and color, there is most likely some genetic programming relationship between the compounds provided by the adults or larvae and the manifestations of plant cellular tissue as influenced by the host’s own hormones. Something in the chemicals provided by gall organisms directs the expression of normal plant genes in the development and expansion of the host plant’s tissues. Scientists have been looking for a long time for this “blueprint” that seems to control gall characteristics. This has become the “Holy Grail” of gall research.
The complex relationships between gall inducers, host plants, and the communities of inquiline and parasitic species that associate with them are fascinating — and mysterious. Again and again in the book, Russo calls attention to the limits of current knowledge. Science increases the amount we know, but it also increases the amount we don’t know, in the sense that the larger an island becomes, the more extensive its shoreline. Russo’s enthusiasm for splashing around at the water’s edge is contagious.
One interesting aspect of galls is that they can persist for a long time. In this post I’m going to look at three old, dried galls that I discovered on my botanical crush, Baccharis pilularis, long after the original inhabitants were gone.
Gall #1: Rhopalomyia californica
One of the most common galls on coyote brush is the one created by the coyote brush bud gall midge, Rhopalomyia californica. I wrote previously about finding this old, dried-out R. californica gall:
I had read that R. californica was used successfully to curb an invasive weed in Australia (not coyote brush, but a related species, groundsel bush, Baccharis halimifolia). Recently I googled up some interesting material about that.
Briefly, adults emerge from the gall in the first few hours after daybreak and mate soon after their emergence. Males are particularly short lived (2-4 hours) while females live 12-14 hours and occasionally longer. Females can be recognized by their orange abdomen, the coloration of which is caused by the mass of vermillion colored eggs. They oviposit approximately 100-150 eggs on the surface of meristematic tissue at stem terminals and occasionally in leaf axils. Neonate larvae enter the stem between bud scales and produce a gall on the stem. A number of larvae form a community gall and these galls can contain more than 50 chambers each housing one larva. The larvae complete their development and pupate within the gall. Flies emerge within two months after oviposition.
I still haven’t seen an adult midge on coyote brush, but I’ll have a better idea what to look for now. I also really want to see a gall with the insects’ pupae protruding from its surface, or with the spent exuviae left behind after the adults emerge. Chuck Baughman has some beautiful pictures of what I think are exuviae (though he commented previously that he thought they might be the bodies of emerging adults killed in a cold snap); they’re definitely worth checking out at BugGuide: Coyote Brush Bud Gall Midge – Rhopalomyia californica.
Gall #2: Rhopalomyia baccharis
In many cases it is easier to identify gall-inducing insects by their galls, rather than by the insects themselves. That’s the case with another Rhopalomyia midge that forms galls on coyote brush, Rhopalomyia baccharis, the coyote brush stem gall midge. The insect itself is more or less indistinguishable from R. californica. But the gall it produces is very different.
I’d been looking for these galls (unsuccessfully) for the past few months, and then last week I noticed an odd thickening on a dead stem. It looked smaller to me than the galls I’d been looking for, but in hindsight that was my mistake; after removing the object, bringing it home and measuring it, I realized that it perfectly matches Russo’s description of “50 to 90 mm long by 5 to 8 mm in diameter”:
Once I examined it up close I was also able to see what I believe are the odd, elliptical openings that form at the outer ends of the gall’s individual larval chambers:
According to Russo:
The rounded-edged, elliptical holes are not typical of the normal sharp-edged, round exit holes created by insects, and they do not appear to have been chewed open. While we have no clear answer at this point, the convenient exit holes appear to be created by the plant after larvae have stopped feeding and stimulation from the larvae has ceased. These holes develop before the larvae (at the bottom of the chambers) change into pupae. Shortly after the holes are created, pupae develop and remain at the bottom of the chambers. Pupation occurs inside the galls, and the adults emerge through the openings in November and December. These unique circumstances make this species stand out from all of its relatives in which the pupae partially push their way out of the gall before the adult emerges. Much more needs to be learned about the habits of this mysterious and interesting gall midge.
Gall #3: Gnorimoschema baccharisella
My favorite line from the movie Men in Black is when Frank the pug observes:
You humans. When’re you gonna learn that size doesn’t matter? Just ’cause something’s important, doesn’t mean it’s not very, very small.
My final gall illustrates this point nicely.
I’ve written previously about the gall of the Baccharis stem gall moth, Gnorimoschema baccharisella. Here’s an image I previously posted of an old, dried G. baccharisella gall at the bluffs:
These galls are monothalamous, meaning that each gall contains a single larval chamber. Russo describes how the larvae chew exit holes, then drop to the ground to pupate. But that’s not the end of the story for the galls:
The frass that accumulates inside the gall serves as a culture medium for various fungi, which are eaten by several fungus insects after departure of the moth. Tilden (1951) found at least 10 parasites associated with this moth in addition to 17 other insects that were connected to the gall or the moth in some manner. The intricacies of these complex relationships stagger the mind for such a common, yet so disregarded, shrub.
The other day at the bluffs William and I came across an old G. baccharisella gall. I removed it and handed it to him, pointing out the emergence hole. He took his scientific curiosity a step farther than I had: He broke it in half.
Looking inside it, he made a discovery. “What are these yellow things? They look like eggs.”
They did. But after bringing the gall home and examining it more closely, I think they may be the fruiting bodies of some kind of fungus. Here are some closeups:
While examining these through the handheld microscope Linda gave me for Christmas, I noticed something crawling around. Here’s the video I took of it:
I few years ago I would have overlooked all three of these galls. But with helpful people like Ron Russo showing me the way, I’m learning to look closer.
Last night the Carpinteria City Council discussed two new ordinances: One to regulate the flying of radio-controlled airplanes at the bluffs, and another to ban dogs, either on- or off-leash, at the salt marsh. I wasn’t able to attend, though I was interested in the discussion, since the bluffs and the marsh are two of my favorite places to walk in Carp. I don’t get cable, so I couldn’t watch the meeting on TV. I’ll have to talk to somebody who was there, or wait until Thursday when the Coastal View comes out, to find out what happened.
The issue of the model airplanes was raised by Peggy Oki, who spoke to the Council recently about her concern that the planes might be bothering the white-tailed kites (Elanus leucurus) that forage and roost at the bluffs. I’m inclined to be skeptical about that; it seems to me that the kites and the planes have been getting along okay, but I don’t have particularly good data to back that up.
With both proposed ordinances I find myself thinking about this: Natural areas need to have a constituency. They need for there to be people who use those areas and appreciate them and will go to bat for them when they’re threatened. Not everyone loves nature the way I do, but if those people get to walk their dogs or fly their model airplanes in a beautiful natural setting they’ll appreciate those places more. It might be worth putting up with a few modest impacts (like those that would result from allowing dogs at the marsh, or model airplanes at the bluffs) to help build the constituencies for those areas.
The bluffs, even more than the marsh, represent an interesting coming together of different groups of users. There are nature-lovers like me, people who watch the harbor seals from the overlook, people who walk dogs, ride bikes, play soccer and softball at Viola Fields, paint landscapes…
And then there are the trains.
Union Pacific’s railroad line runs right through the bluffs. In order to get to the seal overlook most people make what is an arguably illegal uncontrolled crossing of the tracks at the western end of the Artists Passage. You can see the trains approaching from the west, but the curve hides them from the east, and sometimes they’re moving at a pretty good clip. I’ve seen some close calls at that crossing that really scared me.
Railroad safety is important. Besides uncontrolled crossings, there’s the risk of operator error leading to train-on-train collisions. After a 2008 accident between a Union Pacific freight train and a Metrolink passenger train killed 15 people and injured dozens more, the federal government acted to require U.S. railroads to implement something called Positive Train Control (PTC), a sort of air-traffic-control system for trains. As part of implementing PTC, Union Pacific recently added some new antenna towers along their tracks, and a few weeks ago I came across this newly installed pole at the buffs:
I took a picture and sent it to Jackie Campbell, the director of the city’s Community Development department, and at the following week’s Planning Commission meeting Jackie reported that someone named Jason in Union Pacific’s code enforcement operation told her that the antenna pole was part of the railroad’s new PTC system. Union Pacific hadn’t bothered to tell anyone in Carpinteria that they were putting it in; I’m sure their attitude was: hey, if we had to stop and discuss our plans with every little municipality our lines go through we’d never get anything done.
Yes, but.
The Carpinteria bluffs are special. They offer visitors amazing views of the sea, the meadows, the trees, and the mountains, while a trick of the landscape hides most signs of nearby development. Back in the 1990s a grass-roots effort that included a group of Plein-Air landscape painters called the Oak Group raised nearly $4 million in a short span of time to buy the bluffs, then handed the parcel over to the city with a conservation easement requiring that the site’s unique views be protected. The city’s planning documents explicitly recognize the visual aesthetics at the bluffs as being of the highest order, and call for preserving those views as a key goal of the city. Venoco’s recent proposal to drill for oil next to the bluffs was rejected 70-30 by voters, in part because of the visual impacts of the proposed drilling rig. While visual aesthetics are normally a somewhat intangible concept, at the Carpinteria bluffs that concept has been made about as tangible as I can imagine.
I wish Union Pacific had talked to Carpinterians before they put in their new PTC pole. If they could have located it just a short distance to the east it would have been largely hidden, instead of intruding so prominently into our views of the ocean. Maybe they’d be willing to move it.
In the meantime I’m doing my best to ignore it. When I lived in L.A. I was often confronted by the ugliness of my surroundings, but there were times when the sky, especially, would make me catch my breath and stand marveling while everything else — cars, telephone poles, urban grime — disappeared.
That happens to me at the bluffs, too, and even with a Union Pacific antenna pole (or a pier) in the way, I’m sure it will keep happening.
A running joke in my family these days is that I have a crush on coyote brush. We were playing “20 Questions” at the dinner table a few nights ago (anything to get William beyond grunting), and when it was my turn to choose and I announced, “vegetable,” William got it in one, asking with a roll of his eyes, “Is it coyote brush?”
Sigh. I can’t help it. That plant is just so cool.
I previously wrote about the infestation by what I believe was orange tortrix (Argyrotaenia franciscana) along the trail below the Sidenberg Overlook at the bluffs. The infestation was really bad for a while, but the plants have bounced back. Coyote brush has co-evolved with A. franciscana over a very long span of time; apparently the occasional infestation is no big deal. The same plants that basically had no healthy-looking foliage at all two months ago now look like this:
We’re reaching the end of the flowering season for coyote brush, and some of the female plants look like they’re covered in snow. Here’s a closeup of some seeds getting ready to set sail:
When you start paying attention to coyote brush, you can’t help but notice the great variety of insects that associate with it. Here are some photos I’ve taken lately.
Bob Carlson, a retired entomologist who previously did postdoctoral work studying Ichneumonidae, was nice enough to comment on these images I uploaded to Bugguide. He thinks the bluish tint to this small wasp’s eyes suggest that it might be a male (because it lacks the female’s long ovipositor) of the Agathidinae subfamily:
Here’s another wasp, this one crawling around on a Rhopalomyia californica bud gall. It’s not a great photo, but I’m wondering if this might be a species of Torymus, a group of parasitoid wasps that prey on the larvae of gall midges.
No luck so far on an ID for this fly, but after I posted its image at Bugguide and asked for any ideas about what was going on with that bubble of liquid coming from the fly’s mouth, I got a pointer to this interesting discussion: tiny bubbles.
According to my copy of Russo’s Field Guide to Plant Galls of California and Other Western States:
Coyote brush (B. pilularis), also called chaparral broom, is one of the most interesting shrubs entomologically. Tilden’s monumental study (1951) of this shrub identified over 221 species of insects associated with it, as well as eight species of mites. The insects, in turn, hosted an additional 62 species of parasites for a total of 291 species on coyote brush…
As mentioned earlier, the intricacies of host plants, gall inducers, parasites, and inquiline relationships, especially as exemplified by the coyote brush regime, are vastly complicated and a worthy subject for additional study in the future.
You hear that, scoffers? “A worthy subject”!
The Tilden referred to in that passage is James Wilson “Bill” Tilden, who passed away in 1988. He did his 1948 doctoral dissertation at Stanford on the insect associates of B. pilularis. The dissertation was 408 pages long, according to this obituary published in the Journal of the Lepidoptrists’ Society: James Wilson Tilden (1904-1988): A Remembrance (PDF file). I’d love to get a copy of that dissertation.
Not quite as long, but still very much a current object of my desire, is the “monumental study” Russo refers to, Tilden’s 1951 paper, “The Insect Associates of Baccharis pilularis De Candolle”. It was published in Microentomology, a journal that hasn’t yet made it onto the Web, unfortunately. The paper is 39 pages long, and according to a reference I was able to google up, they have a copy at the UCLA Biomedical Library. I think I’m going to have to pay a lunchtime visit to Westwood during one of the days when I’m working in Santa Monica.
Late one afternoon at the Bluffs last week I noticed a large number of California oak moths (Phryganidia californica) fluttering around a small coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia). The tree is right by the Lois Sidenberg Overlook sign, across from the bathrooms at the south end of the Viola Field parking. I wondered what the moths were doing, until some fluttering on a branch called my attention to these three moths:
That’s a female moth on the top, a male moth (identifiable by his feathery antennae) mating with her below, and a second male fluttering off to the side. That second male presumably was attracted by the female’s pheromones, but was too late on the scene to mate with her.
When I looked closer, I realized that the tree was full of oak moth caterpillars. Here’s a shot I took of one of those:
The California oak moth population rises and falls on a 6-8 year cycle. At population peak, stands of oaks can be completely defoliated. Interestingly, healthy oaks appear not to be harmed by these outbreaks. According to a 1986 postdoctoral study by David Hollinger of Stanford, nitrogen cycling is accelerated during the outbreaks, such that the moths actually help fertilize the soil, improving the oaks’ longterm health. See Herbivory and the cycling of nitrogen and phosphorus in isolated California oak trees.
Here’s a short video I took:
At the time I shot that video, I was transfixed by the beauty of the moths’ mating flight. In my memory, the scene is as quiet as a cathedral. After a few minutes I noticed another sound: the gentle, rain-like patter of caterpillar frass falling onto the leaves beneath the tree.
Watching the video after I downloaded it from my camera, the dominant sound is the traffic on the 101 freeway. I guess my brain filtered that out. Good job, brain.
Update: I went back later and noticed a bunch of pupae in an oak on the edge of the Viola Field parking. Here’s my favorite of the shots I got of those:
I also found this: the exuvia left behind after an adult moth emerged:
One thing that helped me out of the resulting funk was this article by Mark Hertsgaard: Why Seattle will stay dry when your city floods. It was adapted from a chapter in Hertsgaard’s new book, Hot: Living through the next fifty years on Earth. I liked the article so much I went out and bought the book. Then I bought three more copies, and have been inflicting them on innocent bystanders ever since. :-)
