Populations of the chaparral shrub were sampled in southern California and further north in Monterey and Santa Clara counties and it was discovered that postfire regeneration modes were different. The southern California populations had substantial resprouting with some seedling recruitment. The Monterey populations had no resprouting ability and recovery was entirely by seedlings. However, there is an age effect in that when young these northern California populations fail to recruit seedlings due to lack of a seed bank buildup in the short interval since the last fire. These populations likely will be extirpated. I hypothesize that this obligate seeding mode has been selected for because seed reproduction is more reliable when intervals between fires are very long, longer that resprouting shrubs would survive. Support for this is provided by demonstrating substantially higher lightning fire frequencies in southern California than in the Monterey and Santa Clara area.

This data publication contains bulk density measurements from two typical species of chaparral shrub which were harvested in 2010 from the North Mountain Experimental Area near Riverside, CA (NMEA), namely chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum) and manzanita (Arctostaphylos sp.). Data include shrub height, crown length, crown width, crown base height, and moisture content, as well as total mass, mass by fuel particle size class, crown volume, and calculated bulk density by shrub height segments. Also included are fire characteristics data from a companion study of fire behavior in similar individual 4-year old live chamise shrubs. The fire behavior data include shrub bulk density, moisture content and total mass consumed during each experimental run for multiple bulk density classes, wind speeds, and ignition methods. Burn time, horizontal and vertical flame spread rates, flame length and flame angle, as well as maximum mass loss rate and peak gas temperatures were also recorded. The R code used to analyze these fire characteristics in Li et al. 2016 is also included.

These data summarize postfire resprouts and seedling counts for Ceanothus species in subgenus Ceanothus based on published data that is cited and personal observation by the author and other co-authors of the publication.

These data summarize postfire resprouts and seedling counts for Ceanothus species in subgenus Ceanothus based on published data that is cited and personal observation by the author and other co-authors of the publication.

This dataset contains data pertaining to ground surface cover in a 30 meter radius around a random selection of points within San Diego County, California. These data were obtained from aerial imagery for the years 1953 and 2016 and were used to assess changes in cover type over time.

This dataset contains data pertaining to ground surface cover in a 30 meter radius around a random selection of points within San Diego County, California. These data were obtained from aerial imagery for the years 1953 and 2016 and were used to assess changes in cover type over time.

This data consists of presence/absence observations for post-fire conifer regeneration. The data also includes estimates of plot-level topography (slope, aspect), relativized differenced normalized burn ratio (RdNBR), post-fire climate, live basal area, and seed rain.

This data consists of presence/absence observations for post-fire conifer regeneration. The data also includes estimates of plot-level topography (slope, aspect), relativized differenced normalized burn ratio (RdNBR), post-fire climate, live basal area, and seed rain.

This data consists of presence/absence observations for post-fire conifer regeneration. The data also includes estimates of plot-level topography (slope, aspect), relativized differenced normalized burn ratio (RdNBR), post-fire climate, live basal area, and seed rain.

This dataset contains data pertaining to vegetation type, woody versus herbaceous versus non-vegetated, for a random selection of points within the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area of Southern California. These data were obtained from aerial imagery for the years 1947, 1977, 1995, 2005, and 2014 and were used to determine changes in cover type over time. These data support the following publication: Syphard, A.D., Brennan, T.J. and Keeley, J.E., 2018. Drivers of chaparral type conversion to herbaceous vegetation in coastal Southern California. Diversity and Distributions. https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12827