This one-acre site connects UCSB's Campus Point and Lagoon Island, featuring several distinct habitats such as salt marsh, coastal scrub, coastal foredune, dune swale, coastal strand, and sandy intertidal. For over forty years invasive South African Iceplant (Carpobrotus edulis) dominated the dune areas of the site, effectively inhibiting natural sand transport, dune formation, and native species establishment. During 2000-2001, students in a restoration ecology class, under the direction of UCSB’s Museum of Systematics and Ecology (now the Cheadle Center), wrote a restoration plan for the site. They manually removed the iceplant after it was solarized and planted native plants grown at the Cheadle Center Native Plant Nursery with seeds collected from local reference sites. Visitors to East Depression will be able to see the spectacular springtime flush of dune flowers and pollinators.
The small, sandy slopes you see along this coastline are sand dunes, one of the more unique habitats found at the Campus Lagoon. They were once scattered along the California coastline from the Oregon border south to San Diego are now very rare due to coastal development, and those that remain are highly degraded. They are constantly changing habitats shaped by wave action, tides, wind, and trampling. Their formation is aided by pioneer dune species such as beach saltbush (Atriplex leucophylla), which capture and stabilize sand. Plants found on coastal sand dunes are mostly prostrate herbs with creeping stems and long fleshy taproots. They often have hairy grayish leaves that are relatively small or succulent. These features help the plants tolerate drought, salt stress, sand abrasion, and intense sunlight. Native dune species found at this site include two Sand Verbenas (Abronia maritima and A. umbellata), Beach Evening Primrose (Camissonia cheiranthifolia), and Seaside Fiddleneck (Amsinckia spectabilis var. spectabilis).