Differences in distribution

Chaparral tends to dominate slightly higher elevations than coastal sage scrub.

Flat areas of campus and some of the slopes are dominated by California sage scrub, but some of the steeper north-facing slopes on campus and most of the slopes in the mountains behind campus, including much National Forest land, are covered in hard chaparral.

Küchler (1977) produced a "potential vegetation map" of California, which mapped both where different vegetation types were and where they were presumed to have been before urbanization and agricultural development eliminated them in places.

Because California sage scrub (or coastal sage scrub) is distributed on gentle slopes it has been easier to develop and turn to other uses (urban uses and agricultural uses) than land that is occupied by most other vegetation types. As a result, most of the CSS area has been lost. For that reason (and because it contains a large number of endemic species), CSS has been a focus of conservation efforts for many years now.