Restoration management for spatially and temporally complex Californian grassland

Introduced species from the Mediterranean dominate plant cover of the Californian grassland, but more than one thousand native species persist at low abundance or may be locally absent. Efforts to successfully increase native abundance are complicated by the spatial and temporal complexity of the system. Highly variable rainfall, topography, and soils result in large differences in species composition across space and time. Managers must deal with this variability to carry out effective restoration. We present a conceptual management toolkit containing five steps to better organize variability, predict suitable restoration sites, and select and time treatments. The toolkit relies on the key concepts of ecological site classification, state-and-transition models, and opportunistic adaptive management to help managers achieve their restoration goals