Native species

[7][8] Over long periods of time, local conditions and migratory patterns are constantly changing as tectonic plates move, join, and split.

Species do naturally appear, reproduce, and endure, or become extinct, and their distribution is rarely static or confined to a particular geographic location.

The diversity of species across many parts of the world exists only because bioregions are separated by barriers, particularly large rivers, seas, oceans, mountains, and deserts.

Humans can introduce species that have never met in their evolutionary history, on varying time scales ranging from days to decades (Long, 1981; Vermeij, 1991).

Attention paid to the historical distribution of native species is a crucial first step to ensure the ecological integrity of the project.

For example, to prevent erosion of the recontoured sand dunes at the western edge of the Los Angeles International Airport in 1975, landscapers stabilized the backdunes with a "natural" seed mix (Mattoni 1989a).

The El Segundo blue butterfly population, which had once extended over 3200 acres along the coastal dunes from Ocean Park to Malaga Cove in Palos Verdes,[20] began to recover when the invasive California buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum) was uprooted so that the butterflies' original native plant host, the dune buckwheat (Eriogonum parvifolium), could regain some of its lost habitat.