Impacts of Non-Domesticated Vertebrates on California Grasslands

Abstract

The potential importance of animals in structuring natural communities has been explicitly recognized at least as far back as Darwin (1890), who estimated the volume of English soil turned over by earthworms. In spite of this, there is a latent tendency among plant-oriented ecologists to harbor the view that animals, while being responsive to the plant community, are not likely to have much effect upon it. Fortunately, this bias is rapidly disappearing as natural communities become better understood. This paper concerns a subset of this larger issue, namely, the impacts of vertebrate animals in California grassland communities. No one would deny the profound effects on this community-type imposed by grazing livestock. But what about non-domesticated vertebrates?