Description

Only four months after the catastrophic Montecito debris flows, a California newt slips through a thicket of algae in Cold Springs Canyon.

After the debris flows, newts trudged through the recently burned foothills to look for mates in the scoured streams, taking shelter less than a mile upstream from the wreckage of human communities below. I found this particular newt while scouting out study sites during June 2018. My research focuses on exploring ecological communities—groups of plants, insects, and larger animals—and how they respond to large-scale disturbances such as the Thomas Fire and Montecito debris flows. In our local streams, the debris flows cleared trees and other vegetation, allowing sunlight-fueled algae blooms to fill the stream. The hair-like algae provided habitat for a host of insect larvae, as well as newts like this little dude.