California’s climate

variability has been a characteristic component of landscape function over centuries. In contrast, landuse activities after 1850 altered the landscape in a manner not previously experienced. During the late Holocene, Anderson Valley was inhabited by the indigenous Pomo people who depended on regional resources including salmon and abundant tan oak acorns (Anderson Valley Historical Society, 2005) and modified their landscape, but not to the degree of later inhabitants. The first European American settlers that arrived in the early 1850s initiated an agricultural transformation of the valley they first referred to as “the Garden of Eden” (Fig. 3; Adams, 1990 and Anderson Valley Historical Society, 2005). The dominant historical http://www.selleckchem.com/screening/gpcr-library.html landuses in the watershed include grazing, orchards, logging, and rural/urban development. Grazing, primarily of sheep, began in ∼1860—stock numbers reached a peak of 75,000 sheep in 1880 and 20,000 cattle that persisted from 1850

through 1940 (Adams, 1990). Logging of hillside tan oaks began in the late 1800s initially to clear land for pasture. However, by the early 1900s selling tan bark was a major industry and oxen were used to skid the logs from the hillslope forests to the mills (Anderson Valley Historical Society, 2005). RGFP966 ic50 Extensive logging occurred after World War II, with over 40 mills operating during one period (Adams, 1990). The majority of recent logging has occurred on the steeper forested southwestern hillslopes of the Robinson Creek watershed. Agricultural changes in Anderson Valley beginning with subsistence farms in the 1850s

that grazed sheep and cattle, and grew grain and other produce, to apple orchards that were prominent through the 1950s have transitioned to today’s vineyards (McGourty et al., 2013). Large California Bay Laurel (Umbellularia mafosfamide Californica) trees remain along some portions of the Robinson Creek channel where they contribute to the riparian forest including Oak, Madrone, and Willow. California Bay Laurel trees with trunk diameters on the order of 1.0 m or more may be centuries old ( Stein, 1990). In some areas of Robinson Creek without riparian vegetation, recent restoration activities includes modification in grazing practices such as construction of exclusionary cattle fencing and native vegetation planting on the creek banks. Booneville, the town established near the confluence of Anderson and Robinson Creeks in the early 1860s, currently has a resident population greater than 1000 and rural/urban development is still occurring.