The Mammals of Rancho El Aribabi fills an important gap in the detailed knowledge of the diversity and abundance of the mammals in the Sky Island region of the U.S. and Mexico borderlands. The multiyear camera trapping effort captures a thorough inventory and baseline of this private protected area and conservation ranch in the heart of a migratory corridor that allows movement north and south in the high latitude portion of the Sierra Madre.

I have had the privilege to work with the…

Imagine that you are driving or biking into any one of a dozen small rural communities on either side of the US/Mexico border in the year 2040. You notice a beautiful building that appears as though it were made of locally sourced materials, situated in a shaded mesquite bosque that appears as though it is as meticulously managed as an orchard of high-quality fruit and nut crops.

In fact, these mesquites are being stewarded for their variety of appealing, sustainable, and saleable…

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…

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…

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…

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…