The Natural History of Foster City, California

by James K. Sayre

a draft manuscript

12 May 2005

Chapter 8 - Ecology of Vacant lots

The ecology of a small system, such as a vacant lot, can be looked upon as a microcosm of the ecology of the whole earth. There are observable inputs of solar energy, rainfall, initial soil and geological conditions, and an initial set of populations and distributions of plants and animals. Of course, there is much interchange with other areas - seed dispersal, animal movement (especially by birds and mammals), human activity (construction, digging, walking, spraying herbicides, mowing, and setting traps).

Vacant lots in Foster City come in a variety of situations and conditions. Some vacant land is open space, some borders on the Belmont Slough Wildlife Refuge, some is covered with bay salt water at certain times of the year, and some is fallow land awaiting development in the future. Parks and other mowed and maintained areas provide a different environment from that of vacant lots. However, even mowed grassy areas have a wide variety of plant life (mostly what are commonly called weeds, such as the English daisy and the Dandelion). The lawn outside of the old library site (corner of Hillsdale Blvd. and Foster City Blvd.) was surveyed by the author in the spring of 1994 and found to contain about two dozen different plant species.

End.

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