DISTRIBUTION AND POPULATION SIZE OF CALIFORNIA GNATCATCHERS ON THE PALOS VERDES PENINSULA:1993-1997

Abstract

The potential effects of fragmentation of natural communities by urban development are dramatically evident on the Palos Verdes Peninsula of Los Angeles County, California. Because of the long history of agricultural and, more recently, intensive urban development of the Los Angeles basin, tracts of natural scrub habitat on the peninsula have become increasingly isolated and smaller since the mid-1900s (Fink 1966, Gales 1974).