Image Content
Reports, Papers, Journal Articles

In island systems, nitrogen-rich seabird guano is a marine subsidy that can shape terrestrial plant communities. In zones of nutrient upwelling such as the Gulf of California, copious seabird guano is commonplace on bird islands. Several bird islands host regionally unique cactus forests, especially of the large columnar cactus, cardón (Pachycereus pringlei). We show that a chain of interactions across the land-sea interface yields an allochthonous input of nitrogen in the form of seabird…

Reports, Papers, Journal Articles

The weekend of April 26th through 28th, 2013 marked an exciting event for the community of Patagonia, Arizona. Biologists from all over the state gathered to document and celebrate the tremendous biodiversity of the Patagonia Mountains, one of the southernmost Sky Island ranges in the United States, and an area threatened by four proposed mining operations. A bioblitz is a relatively recent term describing a short but intense period of biological surveying, meant to identify as many species…

Reports, Papers, Journal Articles

Since 1979, observations of monarch butter y (Danaus plexippus L.) in Sonora, Mexico have been low. There are 10 records of monarchs breeding in Sonora on Asclepias curassavica, A. lemmonii, A. linaria, and A. subulata (Apocynaceae).

In July-August, monarchs from the Canelo-Hereford area in Arizona y to the Río San Pedro, Sonora, south to the Cananea area, and then in the Río Sonora through central Sonora to Hermosillo and the Gulf of California. From the Río Sonora, they move up…

Reports, Papers, Journal Articles

The New World tropics reaches its northern limit in Sonora, not as often stated at the Tropic of Cancer (23.37°N) just north of Mazatlán, Sinaloa. The northernmost tropical deciduous forest (TDF) is in Sonora (28.6˚N), 680 kilometers north-northwest of Mazatlán and 300 km south of the Arizona border.

The Sierra Madre Occidental (SMO) in northeastern Sonora reaches its northern limit in the Sierra de Huachinera (30.25°N; Fig. 1). Between the SMO and the Mogollon Rim in central Arizona…

Image Content
Image Content
Reports, Papers, Journal Articles

Natural landscapes have distinctive personalities. Each is the product of the interplay of geology, climate, vegetation, time, and often, human activities. The landscapes that form the Santa Catalina Mountains of southeastern Arizona give that range a unique personality like no other in the American Southwest.

Rising as a great mountain island to over 9000 feet in elevation at their summit, Mount Lemmon, the Santa Catalina Mountains are the greatest expanse of high country within the…

Image Content

Rio Altar near Oquitoa, Sonora around 2013. The Rio Altar is the westernmost Sonoran creek with perennial water, until the Rio Sonoyta, which has very little, if any, perennial water left.

This valley has had small-scale agriculture for many decades, but recently started seeing huge nut tree farms by big ag, which could spell doom for the surface water and groundwater, and potentially some of the riparian gallery forests as well. There are still large stretches of cottonwood and…