Food Systems

Food Systems and Conservation Synergies

In many ecosystems, including California oak woodlands, food systems and biodiversity conservation are integrally linked.

For example - Are working rangelands or research reserves a better environment for oak recruitment? (hint, the answer might surprise you!)

In our studies of land-use and oak recruitment (McLaughlin and Zavaleta 2013, Diversity and Distributions, we saw that recruitment was worse on research reserves than in a range of other working landscapes, suggesting that disturbance may play an important role in recruitment and the goals of working landscapes and oak conservation may be more compatible than previously thought.

Thanks to The Central Coast Rangeland Coalition and the UC Natural Reserve System