Dawson Los Monos Canyon Reserve

Flowing through the bottom of the Dawson Los Monos Canyon Reserve is Agua Hedionda Creek, one of the few perennial streams in Southern California, as it winds its way through the San Diego county foothills to the Pacific Ocean. Along the stream banks of the canyon floor grows a lush riparian woodland, which gives way to dense chaparral spreading up the steep north- and south-facing slopes. The wide upper canyon opens out onto old pastures of introduced annual grasses, the result of a century of grazing. Other reserve habitats, some of which were once common throughout Southern California, include coast live oak woodland, inland sage scrub, and a mixed grassland of native bunchgrasses and introduced annuals.

Downstream from the reserve’s western boundary lie the coastal wetlands of the Agua Hedionda Lagoon, which are preserved through state and federal legislation. These neighboring protected lands enable the movement of species between open spaces, which in turn encourages diversity and helps keep the reserve from becoming an isolated natural island in this growing region.

The varied landscape of Los Monos Canyon supports a rich fauna featuring more than 75 species of birds, including several pairs of nesting black-shouldered kites.

Restoration Ecology

Stream bank restoration

Fire Ecology

Old-growth and post-burn chaparral monitored since a 1982 fire

Field Courses

Site visits by university courses in ecology, human biology, education, and natural history; high school courses in environmental science.

Public Outreach

UC’s California Naturalist Program uses the reserve as one of their field sites for student independent projects. The San Diego Natural History Museum collects plant specimens.

Selected Research

• Stigma behavior in Mimulus aurantiacus (Scrophulariaceae).
• Parasite diversity of small mammals in fragmented areas.
• Suitability of soils and habitat types for the federally endangered Pacific pocket mouse.
• Systematics of the genus Zygnema (Zygnematophyceae, Charophyta) from Californian watersheds.
• Honey bee displacement of carpenter bees as the main pollinator and effects on fertility of Salvia apiana.
• Evolutionary genetics of the self-incompatibility in Solanaceae and Papaveraceae.