Salt Marsh Bird’s Beak

Once far more widespread than it is today, the annual salt marsh bird’s beak (Chloropyron maritimum ssp. maritimum) can still be found in nine coastal marshes and marsh complexes extending from Morro Bay in San Luis Obispo County southward into northern Baja California, Mexico. Southern California’s estuarine salt marsh habitats have undergone extensive historical losses from stream channelization, water diversion, urbanization, and agricultural and marine development. This, in turn, led to the listing of bird’s beak as a federally endangered species in 1978 and a state endangered species in 1979. Within the Ecological Health Assessment Study Area, bird’s beak is only found in the Coastal Study Area, where it is primarily distributed within the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve.

Bird’s beak typically grows in mid- to high-marsh habitat with relatively infrequent tidal inundation. Although the loss of salt marsh habitat to development has largely been curtailed around Upper Newport Bay, surrounding urbanization makes bird’s beak particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise here, as its options for horizontal marsh migration are limited. Thus, changes in the distribution and extent of bird’s beak surrounding Upper Newport Bay provide an indication of the ability of this and other sensitive salt marsh species to shift distribution in response to sea level rise.

For two of the three metrics chosen to assess generalized locations surrounding Upper Newport Bay, the condition was good, with either an unchanging or unknown trend and a moderate level of confidence. For the third metric (threats), the condition is significant concern and a moderate level of confidence; there was insufficient data to determine a trend.

It will be important to continue ongoing monitoring to track its condition and trends as well as the impacts of sea level rise and invasive plant species. Coordinating this monitoring with other groups implementing a range-wide bird’s beak monitoring protocol at other coastal wetland sites would support comparisons of Upper Newport Bay population dynamics with regional trends and help determine optimum times to monitor.