Fighting Fire with Flora: Ecologist Shares Climate-Smart Planting Strategies
Westmont ecologist Laura Drake Schultheis shares her research about plant flammability and defensible spaces in the face of climate change in a Westmont Downtown Lecture on Wednesday, March 11, at 5:30 p.m. at Westmont Downtown | Keith Center, 29 W. Anapamu St. The talk, “Rooted in Resilience: Adaptive Planting Strategies in Wildland-Urban Interfaces,” is free and open to the public. Parking for the lecture is available at either Santa Barbara City Parking Lots 4 or 5. No tickets are required; the limited seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, please call (805) 565-6051.
“I will share examples of native plant restoration and efforts to improve community defensibility in fire-prone areas like Santa Barbara,” she says. “I hope people are encouraged by the conversation and empowered to get involved in the work being done to restore our native ecosystems and reduce fire risk in our own communities.”
Schultheis, a Westmont alumna who earned a master’s degree in ecology and a doctorate in plant ecology from UC Santa Barbara, has played an integral role in the restoration of a fire-resilient oak woodland west of Westmont’s campus. She and her students have planted about 60 native coast live oaks where Montecito Fire removed dead and dying eucalyptus trees in the summer of 2023.
“While no plant serves as a complete barrier to fire, there is some evidence that healthy, mature oak canopies can slow the spread of fire compared to non-native species like eucalyptus,” says Schultheis, a Westmont assistant professor of biology.
Last summer, she and student Isabella Garcia ’25 presented a paper, “Purposeful Planting: Characterizing Plant Flammability Using Functional Traits for Defensible Space,” at the Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, one of the largest ecology conferences in the nation.
Other research has analyzed the structural and functional traits that contribute to the flammability of 20 Santa Barbara native plant species. This summer she and a team of Westmont undergraduates will expand on this work through a collaboration with researchers at UC Santa Barbara.
Schultheis has also published a paper on the effects of drought and opportunistic fungi on big berry manzanita shrubs.
The Westmont Foundation sponsors the talk, part of Westmont Downtown: Conversations about Things that Matter.