On the Ground • California's Mediterranean climate zone supports grasslands that are biologically diverse. • Livestock grazing is being increasingly used to promote native species diversity at both the pasture and landscape scales. • Several federally and state-listed vertebrates and insects respond positively to grazing to improve habitat by opening and lowering grassland vegetation. More work is needed on enhancement of native plants. • Research results need to be more extensively applied, tested, and monitored under variable conditions.

The fracture strength of fused silica rods w a s determined i n vacuum a n d in the saturated vapors of water, ethyl alcohol, n-butyl alcohol, n-propyl alcohol, acetone, ethyl acetate, undried benzene with "less than O . O Z~o water," and dried benzene. The relation between the lowering of the fracture strength of the f u s e d silica caused b y the vapor and the corresponding decrease in surface f r e e energy of quartz w a s found to b e consistent with the Griffith theory of brittle fracture.

Over eight years we measured the effects of plant community composition, vegetation structure, and livestock grazing on occurrence of three grassland bird species—Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta), Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris), and Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum)—at sites in central California during breeding season. In California’s Mediterranean-type climatic region, coastal and inland grassland vegetation is dominated by exotic annual grasses with occasional patches of native bunchgrass and forbs. Livestock grazing, primarily with beef cattle, is the most widely used management tool. Compared with ungrazed plots, grazed plots had higher bare ground, native plant cover, and vertically heterogeneous vegetation. Grazed plots also had less plant litter and shorter vegetation. Higher native plant cover, which is predominantly composed of bunchgrasses in our study area, was associated with livestock grazing and north-facing aspects. Using an information theoretic approach, we found that all three bird species had positive associations with native plant abundance and neutral (Western Meadowlark, Grasshopper Sparrow) or positive (Horned Lark) association with livestock grazing. All species favored flatter areas. Horned Larks and Western Meadowlark occurred more often where there were patches of bare ground. Western Meadowlarks and Grasshopper Sparrows were most common on north-facing slopes, suggesting that these species may be at risk from projected climate change. These findings demonstrate that livestock grazing is compatible with or supports grassland bird conservation in Mediterranean-type grasslands, including areas with high levels of exotic annual grass invasion, in part because grazing supports the persistence of native plants and heterogeneity in vegetation structure. However, conservation of low-lying grasslands with high native species presence, and active management to increase the abundance of native plant species are also likely to be important for sustaining grassland birds long-term.

Woody plant encroachment into open grasslands occurs worldwide and causes multiple ecological and management impacts. Prescribed fire could be used to conserve grassland habitat but often has limited efficacy because many woody plants resprout after fire and rapidly reestablish abundance. If fire‐induced mortality could be increased, prescribed fire would be a more effective management tool. In California's central coast, shrub encroachment, especially of Baccharis pilularis (coyote brush), is converting coastal prairie into shrub‐dominated communities, with a consequent loss of native herbaceous species and open grassland habitat. B. pilularis has not been successfully controlled with single prescribed fire events because the shrub resprouts and reestablishes cover within a few years. We investigated whether two consecutive annual burns would control B. pilularis by killing resprouting shrubs, without reducing native herbaceous species or encouraging invasive plants. As expected, resprouting did occur; however, 2 years after the second burn, B. pilularis cover on burned plots was only 41% of the cover on unburned plots. Mortality of B. pilularis more than doubled following the second burn, likely maintaining a reduction in B. pilularis cover for longer than a single burn would have. Three native coastal prairie perennial grasses did not appear to be adversely affected by the two burns, nor did the burns result in increased cover of invasive species. Managers wanting to restore coastal prairie following B. pilularis encroachment should consider two consecutive annual burns, especially if moderate fire intensity is achievable.

On 10 sloped grassland sites, 175 Nassella pulchra plants were randomly selected and their basal geometry measured. Plants were not circular (p < 0.001) with an average elongation of 30.3% þ 20.7 and 89% of the plants had greater than 10% elongation. Sixty-six percent of the plants had the elongation oriented along the contours. Elongation was correlated with slope steepness (p ¼ 0.003, r 2 ¼ 0.06), but unrelated to the angle the long axis was deflected from the slope fall line (p ¼ 0.21, r 2 ¼ 0.02). This elongation and orientation potentially reduced overland flow compared to circular plants.Nassella pulchra (purple needlegrass), an historically dominant native perennial bunchgrass (Bartolome, Klukkert, and Barry, 1986), has been advocated over exotic annuals as having a longer grazing season (Bentley and Talbot, 1948), providing higher quality forage (Van Dyne and Heady, 1965), promoting wildlife habitat (Elstein, 2004), and resisting invasion (Reever Morghan and Rice, 2005). To decision-makers, many of these attributes have limited supporting evidence, appeal, or financial value. Yet, if N. pulchra has the potential to inhibit erosion=improve water quality (e.g., Atwill, Tate, Pereira, Bartolome, and Nader, 2006) more than its sparse cover indicates, this may offer a quantifiable reason to promote its revegetation and conservation.Hydrological models (commonly used as decision-making tools) incorporate vegetation usually as either uniform cover (e.g., Istanbulluoglu and Bras, 2005;Montaldo, Rondena, Albertson, and Mancini, 2005) or as density (e.g., Collins, Bras, and Tucker, Mancini, 2004). Inclusion of bunchgrasses using cover has been somewhat unsuccessful (Emmerich and Cox, 1992;Weltz, Frasier, and Weltz, 2000) which offers the opportunity to examine bunchgrass characteristics that could improve future models (e.g., Ludwig, Wilcox, Breshears, Tongway, and Imeson, 2005). As the path of water moving down the slope becomes more tortuous (less straight), the flow slows, and the amount of water moved sediment or contaminants