iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 18/06/2026

Selecting coastal California prairie species for climate-smart grassland restoration Published in CNGA Grasslands Journal, PDF: justinluong.com/assets/pdf/L... #restorationecology #grasslands

031

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 08/06/2026

Local grassland restoration affects insect communities doi.org/10.1111/een.... Local scale grassland in coastal Santa Barbara, CA affects insects communities resulting in less hyper dominance of herbivorous pests like thrips, and higher abundance and possible refuge for native bumblebees

065

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 04/06/2026

HAPPY PRIDE from California Native Plants and the Luong Lab!!! 🤍🩷🩵🤎🖤❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 This 2026 Flag from our lab features 152 california native plants! Did you know California is a Biodiversity hotspot with over 6000 native plants? How many plants can you name or spot? 🧐 #CaliforniaNativePlants

47526

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 03/10/2025

Cool talk by Emma King looking at how Irish wind energy installation affects biodiversity!!

010

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 02/10/2025

A great presentation by Julia Briand at #Ser2025 about how we can improve integration of functional traits for ecological restoration across scales and trophic levels!

090

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 16/09/2025

Join us tonight for a double feature presentation by Andrea Nebhut (Stanford) and Deborah Ayala (Texas AM)!!! Cnga.org/events at 6 PM pst

030

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 09/09/2025

Join us for the kick off of the 2025 GRASS Student Seminar Series!! Free for students or members tonight at 6 PM PST - register at cnga.org/event-6289388 for $10/talk or become members and see the rest of the series free while supporting California Native Grasslands!

Title: Seed traits may predict species success in habitats dominated by thatch-producing annual grasses

Speaker: Katherine Brafford, PhD Candidate, UC Davis

September 9, 2025 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM

Abstract: Community assembly frameworks propose that the species at a site are filtered by their traits from the regional species pool. Thatch producing non-native annual grasses, such as medusahead (Elymus caput-medusae), are common in the western United States. They alter environmental conditions and impose filters that have a mixed, but usually negative, effect on native plant, animal, and insect populations. In this study, we explore the abiotic effects of living medusahead, medusahead thatch, native vegetation, and bare ground cover types. We also examine if traits commonly thought to lead to plant success in medusahead-dominated habitats correlate with plant emergence and growth in living medusahead, medusahead thatch, native vegetation, and bare ground cover types. We selected a grassland site with high medusahead cover and created plots of each cover type in a randomized incomplete block design. We installed sensors to measure soil moisture and temperature, relative humidity, light, and air temperature. We selected 27 species native to and/or growing at the site that varied in seed mass, seed shape, native status, growth form, and bloom time. We planted seeds of each species into miniplots within each plot. We measured seed emergence, growth stage, and above-ground biomass. In this talk, I will present our results on seed traits. As hypothesized, greater seed mass, narrower seeds, and longer awns were correlated with a greater number of plants in both living medusahead and thatch cover. This study will shed light on how traits relate to community assembly; clarify mechanisms underlying annual grass invasion and grassland restoration outcomes; and inform future restoration efforts.

Contact Justin Luong (jluong4@ucsc.edu) with any questions.

040

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 08/09/2025

sun sets at 240am in california tonight - dont miss it! ✨️ ai ✨️

140

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 05/09/2025

Is ecological restoration of grasslands successful? You'll have to read to find out more ;) but a quick preview says yes!! Interviews with managers show there are limitations both creative ways forward! Check out an amazing illustrated summary by LesleyGoren.com doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.109956

Illustrated summaries of "Lessons learned from an interdisciplinary evaluation of long-term restoration outcomes on 37 restored coastal grasslands in California" by Lesley Goren (lesleygoren.com). Page 1 of 2

https://justinluong.com/menu/artandscience.html

150

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 02/09/2025

Join us for California Native Grassland Association's 4th Annual Virtual Speaker Series for Student Grant Winners! Register at CNGA.org/events for $10/talk (unlimited access after), or become a member and come to all talks free with membership, and access all previous talks. Hope to see you soon!

A flyer for "California Native Grassland Association 2025 GRASS Award Speaker Series"

Reads: Join us for the CNGA’s 4th annual virtual speaker series that will showcase the amazing work undertaken in California Grasslands by GRASS Award winners from 2022-2024. You can contact Justin Luong (jluong4@ucsc.edu) with any questions. Register at CNGA.org/events

With a schedule of speakers below
9/9 - Katherine Brafford
9/16 - Andrea Nebhut, Deborah Ayala
9/23 - Ernesto Chavez Velasco
10/14 - Jessica Solis
10/21- Sophie Noda
10/28 - Lauren Glevanik

#CaliforniaNativePlants

162

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 29/08/2025

An abbreviated illustrated summary by Garrett Urban!! justinluong.com/assets/pdf/T...

Illustrated Summary of Native and invasive bunchgrasses have different responses to trail disturbance on California coastal prairies Page 1 by Garret Urban with two California Native Plants or Grasses (Danthonia californica and Stipa pulchra) and two invasives (Holcus lanatus and Dactylis glomerata)

140

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 13/08/2025

Big news!! I now an Assistant Professor of Working Lands and Restoration in the Environmental Science, Policy and Management Dept at UC Berkeley!! I'll miss my time in Humboldt but excited for my new journey and grateful for all the support from everyone over the years! @natureatcal.bsky.social

Justin at the University of California (Berkeley) sign near the north entrance of campus.

8572

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 12/08/2025

We had a funeral for our beloved lab scanner last week. She shall be missed R.I.P. circa. 2017 - 2025 😭🪦💔

We did not bury the scanner in the ground but instead planted dozens of California native plants in its place

1110

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 03/08/2025

Fairies for Revolution 🧚🏽‍♂️🇵🇸

050

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 30/07/2025

The Western Lily (Lilium occidentale) is a beautiful crimson flower that towers up at 5-6 ft tall out at the Tabe Bluff prairies in Humboldt County. Its federally and California state endangered because lots of its important coastal prairie habitat has been lost!

A close up of western lily with anthers exserted and beautiful crimson petals

#CaliforniaNativePlants
#CaliforniaGrasslands
#Botany
#bloomsky
#CaliforniaRaw
#lily
#NativePlants
#crimson

1221

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 25/07/2025

My first grad student is giving his defense today about assembly in California coastal grasslands using a trait based approach and thinking about spatial turnover. Join us if you can! 2PM PST Today humboldtstate.zoom.us/j/8104302203...

A flyer of Plant community assembly across environmental gradients by Ernesto Chavez-Velasco at Cal Poly Humboldt

140

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 23/07/2025

Development day in the Lab!! I'm forcing everyone to make a @linkedin.com or update their page!!

Luong Lab updating their LinkedIn pages during a Lab meeting.

060

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 23/07/2025

Say Hello to the newest @droughtnet.bsky.social study site!! The Luong and Byrne Lab will be monitoring drought in Northern Coastal Prairies to see how extreme (70% rain reduction) affects rangelands in Kneeland, Humboldt County, CA

A drought structure in the process of being completed by members of thr Luong Lab wearing Humboldt State branded safety vests

0110

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 14/07/2025

Bromus carinatus (now Bromus sitchensis) or California Brome is a common native perennial bunchgrass, important forage, and a quick and resilient species for erosion control and recovery. It has beautiful spikelets and seeds that can sometimes become purplish. Look at the beautiful grass flowers!!

Macro photo of Bromus carinatus by Justin Luong at Russian Ridge in San Mateo County, California, USA

It has beautiful flowers with purple/yellow anthers exserted from the spike with purple glumes and fluffy white stigmas at the opening.

#CaliforniaNativePlants
#CaliforniaGrasslands
#CaliforniaRaw
#BloomSky
#Grasseshaveflowerstoo
#Poaceae
#Agrostology
#Botany

1180

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 11/07/2025

Sweet Klamath Mountain Lillies (Lilium kelloggii) that have a delicious sweet scent and make scrumptious eye candy 🍬 🍬 These bright beautiful flowers are endemic to the Klamath Mountains in Northern California

Close up photo of Lilium kelloggii. Bright hot pink flowers curled up like a chandelier with leopard spotting and vibrant red anthers hanging below.

#CaliforniaNativePlants
#NativePlants
#BloomSky
#FlowerFriday
#RawCalifornia

A photo of Lilium kelloggii in the Redwood Forest understory

38412

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 03/07/2025

Beautiful California beach morning glory (Calystegia soldanella) at the Mal'e'l Dunes in Humboldt

Photo of a beach morning glory (Calystegia soldanella) with large flowers with a white star center filled with purple between star points making a circular flower with small green succulent leaves behind the flower surrounded by bare sand

#CaliforniaNativePlants
#NativePlants
#RawCalifornia
#BloomSky
#FlowerFriday

0181

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 03/07/2025

No more like a cutesy demure little bunchgrass!! 🤗

000

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 01/07/2025

Pride Month is over BUT everyday is pride!! Let's get this queer. We are here and we aren't going anywhere!

Justin with a progressive Pride Flag in his office

060

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 24/06/2025

A busy summer day in the Luong Restoration and Rangeland Ecology Lab!

9 students working in the Luong Lab at Cal Poly Humboldt on various lab tasks

140

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 23/06/2025

Happy Pride from California Native Plants! This is the first CA native plant pride flag I made from 2021!

Pride Flag of California native Plants
Red/Brown = Deschampsia californica (Tufted hair grass)
Orange = Eschscholzia californica (California Poppy)
Yellow = Erysimum menziesii (coastal wallflower)
Green = Festuca californica (California Fescue)
Blue = Iris douglasiana (Common Iris)
Purple = Calochortus unifloris (Oakland Star Tulip)
Pink = Clarkia ungiculata (Elegant Clarkia)

#Pride
#PrideMonth
#PrideFlag

2171

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 03/06/2025

Carl and Peppy say happy Pride Month! 🤍🩷🩵🤎🖤❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

Peppy and Carl in the window with a progressive Pride Flag

040

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 02/06/2025

Seaside Daisy is a beautiful little aster that is often windswept on coastal Bluffs and prairies. It has bright vibrant pink-purple flowers that attract native pollinators with flowers that persist into the summer. Thank your local Seaside Daisy (Erigeron glaucus) today!

Photo of Seaside Daisy (Erigeron glaucus) at Point St. George in Del Norte County, California by Justin Luong

#CaliforniaNativePlants
#CaliforniaGrasslands
#Flowers
#Asteraceae

090

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 01/06/2025

I'm Justin, I'm an assistant professor and I study restoration ecology, how it's affected by climate change and rangeland ecosystems using field, physiological and social science approaches. I have a puppy named Poa after the genus of grass and a cat named Peppermint after a drag queen!

Justin with a taxidermied mountain lion and thr Jorgeous pose with a Rainbow raise fist CAL IPC Let's Pull Weeds Together

#Pride

191

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 30/05/2025

a few years ago I found that non-periodic restoration activities can promote native woody species encroachment in California coastal prairies, specifically by Baccharis pilularis (coyote brush). This may suggest a need for stewardship of coastal grasslands! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Infographic of Nonperiodic grassland restoration management can promote native woody shrub encroachment - a paper published in Restoration Ecology by Justin Luong and infographic illustrated by Mia Rassam.

PDF accessible version available at justinluong.com

273

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 30/05/2025

Grasses have flowers too 🥺🌾 If you look closely you can see beautiful grassy floral parts like color pollen bearing anthers and fluffy receptive seed forming stigmas that are just more discrete. Learn your grass anatomy and you'll only love them more!! Bromus carinatus (now B. sitchensis) is gorg!

Macro photo of Bromus sitchensis previously B. carinatus, California Brome with different parts of the grass flower (spike) labeled

#CaliforniaNativePlants #CaliforniaGrasslands #Agrostology #Poaceae #CaliforniaRaw #Wildflowers

0121

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 29/05/2025

Drought favors key plant functional groups and strategies, especially rhizomatous species; thatch is also related to lower native plant cover! I wrote a small piece for California Native Grasslands Association's on Selecting Coastal California Prairie Species for Climate-Smart Grassland Restoration

Graphic illustration (page 1) of Justin's Dissertation project assessing the role of functional traits in structuring California Native Plants restoration survival outcomes with extreme drought under IDE Drought Net Plots. See full illustration at https://justinluong.com/assets/pdf/Luong%20Grasslands%20Vol%2030%20No%204%20Ch%201%20graphical%20summary%20(1).pdf

1192

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 29/05/2025

A beautiful Danthonia californica. California Oat Grass are foundational species that characterized CA coastal prairies. They were harvested as traditional foods and also highly adapted to grazing, fire and trampling often showing compensatory growth and cleistogamous seeds!

California Oat Grass (#Danthonia californica) #macro shot of the spikelets fully flowering with anthers exserted and stigmas fuzzy and fully in view 😍 Taken in Willits, CA in Mendocino County 5/22/25 by Justin Luong

#CaliforniaNativePlants
#CaliforniaGrasslands
#Agrostology
#Poaceae
#CaliforniaRaw
#Wildflowers

0314

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 28/05/2025

Baker's meadowfoam (Limnanthes bakeri) is a threatened plant species. It has beautiful translucent petals that become like foam with dew in the mornings. It needs open habitat and trampling and does particularly well with seasonal grazing 🐄 #CalifoniaNativePlants

A close up #macro photo of #Limnanthes bakeri with #dew on the petals making the meadow foam 🌊

#CaliforniaNativePlants
#NativePlants
#Limnanthaceae
#RangelandEcology
#CaliforniaGrasslands

A field of Baker's meadowfoam flowering and seeding at the Willits Bypass in #Mendocino California

0282

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 20/05/2025

Beautiful day to conduct data collection at the Wet Meadows in Willits! Our lab is working to understand the grazing management and utility in supporting habitat for sensitive plant species like Baker's Meadowfoam (Limnanthes bakerii)

Justin in a field of Hosackia oblongifolia with other native forbs like Camassia, Ranuculus and Limnathes bakerii and Pleuropogon californicus and many nonnative perennial grasses

Macro shot of #Limnanthes bakerii
Baker's #Meadowfoam

#CaliforniaNativePlants
#NativePlants
#CaliforniaGrasslands
#RangelandEcology
#Flowersky

A field of #Limnanthes bakerii
Baker's #Meadowfoam

#CaliforniaNativePlants
#NativePlants
#CaliforniaGrasslands
#RangelandEcology

Cattle eating non-native grasses and making room for beautiful native forbs

0130

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 19/05/2025

So proud of the graduating Rangeland Resource Sciences Major at @calpolyhumboldt.bsky.social including my first Master's student, Ernesto Chavez-Velasco!! Congratulations 🎊

Rangeland Resource undergraduate Majors and two masters students and the range program faculty at Cal Poly Humboldt West Gym in preparation of graduation

Ernesto Chavez-Velasco, M.S., walking across the stage with their diploma

182

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 04/05/2025

Tritilea daze. Ithuriel's Spear (#Tritilea laxa) is a native bulb (geophyte) species common in Northern California and beyond. These beautiful umbelled blue/purple flowers were intentionally planted on hill slopes to make it easier to tend. Bulbs and Flowers are edible and delicious raw.

A hillside of flowering Tritilea laxa in Winters, CA

#CaliforniaNativePlants
#CaliforniaGrasslands
#NativePlants

0100

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 02/05/2025

The beautiful Humboldt Bay Owls (#Castilleja ambigua var. humboldtiensis) is hemiparasitic and blooming in full force at Arcata Marsh. This variety grows along salt marshes and is adapted to high salinity. The flowers are edible and were traditionally consumed but the leaves are toxic with Selenium!

A close up photo of Castilleja ambigua var. humboldtiensis at Arcata Marsh with bright vibrant pink-purple flower tops and a bright yellow where the floral beak exserts the corolla. This #hemiparasitic plant in the #Orobanchaeae family also has darker color leaves because it makes a very minimal amount of chlorophyll

#CaliforniaNativePlants
#NativePlants
#CaliforniaRaw

070

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 30/04/2025

Gold fields (#Lasthenia californica) making fields of gold ✨️ 💛 these little asters are common across the state usually in force in serpentine and more scattered in normal soils. These cute little flowers have edible seeds prepared a variety of ways different Indigenous tribes

A field of gold created by goldfields (#Lastheniacalifornica) with small #Plagiobothyrs greenei scattered within at Dye Creek Preserve

#CaliforniaNativePlants
#NativePlants
#Asteraceae
#CaliforniaGrasslands

0200

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 29/04/2025

My 2nd paper and first project looked at my 'gateway' plant, the endangered Lupinus nipomensis, which got into research. We evaluated reseeding and found microhabitat topography and caging were both important implements to improve reproductive success and establishment! doi.org/10.1007/s118...

A photo of a flowering Lupinus nipomensis by Justin Luong. The leaves are curling upward towards the light with succulent decumbent stems and bright flowers that are pink on the upper banner and wings on the lower portion of the whorl and darker purple as it ascends with a white banner spot. #CaliforniaNativePlants

1130

Justin Luong, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🌾 @justinluong.com · 28/04/2025

We had a beautiful time at Dye Creek Preserve working on secondary invasions in a beautiful short prairie forbland with miles of Tidy Tips and goldfields and spectacular forb diversity. Cattle here are especially important in maintaining open space and limiting non-native annual grass invasions

Wendy and Angelina in the foreground taking plant functional traits with Tonia walking from the background in a short prairie grassland filled with native forbs

A beautiful arrangement of #CaliforniaNativePlants at a dry stream bed with #Phacelia #Lupinus and #Amsinckia
#CaliforniaGrasslands
#NativePlants

Grazing cattle that are important to maintaining the forb diversity, ecosystem services and superblooms for miles #RangelandEcology

080