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wetland habitats, and cultivated lands (map 3). <br /> Plants at the Buckeye Ranch are distributed in time and space as influenced by various <br /> environmental and historical conditions, including moisture availability, underlying soils, <br /> fire history, as well as past and on-going land management activities. Individual plants are <br /> organized into loose associations called plant communities. Plant communities form the <br /> basis of life support systems -- habitats -- for wildlife species. <br /> Availability of moisture is one of the biggest influences on the general structure of the plant <br /> communities. At the local scale,the availability of water to plants is directly related to <br /> topography and underlying soil structure. Low areas with underlying claypans impound <br /> water from local watersheds. These short-lived vernal pools quickly burst with plant and <br /> animal life in spring, then remain dormant for most of the year. Larger sized landscapes, <br /> such as Jahant Slough and Tracy Lakes, take longer to fill with water, but drain more <br /> slowly. Historically, Tracy Lakes probably supported a series of seasonal wetlands <br /> surrounded by a narrow ring of riparian trees and seasonal marshes. At a larger scale size, <br /> the Mokelumne River, encompassing a watershed of 800 square miles,once flooded as a <br /> result of regional meteorological conditions,resulting in regional flooding influences and <br /> deposition of fertile soil. Occasional flooding from the Mokelumne River is possibly <br /> related to the regeneration of the closed canopy live oak forest. <br /> The last 100 years of human occupation by non-Indians has greatly altered the site. <br /> Grazing has impacted the Buckeye Ranch by compacting soils and selectively removing <br /> riparian and wetland vegetation,especially during the dry season. Much of the oak <br /> savanna and grassland portions of the property are now dominated almost completely by <br /> alien annual grasses. The annual draining of Tracy Lakes since the 1940's, coupled with <br /> the farming of the lake beds, has resulted in a great loss of wetland habitat. Due to long <br /> Buckeye Ranch Resource Plan (November, 1993) <br /> 32 <br />