Joshua Trees in Bloom

Yucca_brevifolia_inflorescenceJoshua Trees are in bloom this spring across the Mojave Deserts. They are blooming in southwestern Utah, as well as California, Nevada and Arizona, The Salt Lake City Tribune reports. The article says that the long-lived trees rarely bloom and to have so many bloom over such a wide area is a “once in a lifetime event.” (An event that is likely just about over, the article notes.)

This is some “extra” news, which won’t inform your wildlife management work, but may add some joy to it.

Read The Salt Lake City Tribune article here.

Photo: Stan Shebs, Closeup of Yucca brevifolia inflorescence in Red Rock Canyon, taken March 2005. Used under Wikimedia license.

Proposed ESA Listing for 2 Washington Plants

The US Fish and Wildlife Service would like to add the Umtanum desert buckwheat and White Bluffs bladderpod to the federal endangered species list, says the Spokane Spokesman-Review.

The two plants are found only in Washington State’s Hanford Reach National Monument, and were discovered during a survey of the area in 1995.

Read more in the Spokane Spokesman-Review.
Find the Federal Register listing, here. The comment period is open until July 16.

Proposed ESA Listing for 2 Washington Plants

The US Fish and Wildlife Service would like to add the Umtanum desert buckwheat and White Bluffs bladderpod to the federal endangered species list, says the Spokane Spokesman-Review.

The two plants are found only in Washington State’s Hanford Reach National Monument, and were discovered during a survey of the area in 1995.

Read more in the Spokane Spokesman-Review.
Find the Federal Register listing, here. The comment period is open until July 16.

Diversity Reduces Disease Risk in Plants Too

High species diversity is believed to reduce the spread of disease because some species are more susceptible to the disease than others. But what if it’s a disease that all the species get? And what if the species are plants?

A study published in the current issue of Ecology Letters found that the principle of disease dissolution still applied. The disease spread more slowly in more species-rich forests, perhaps because the different species, while all susceptible, had different levels of susceptibility and transmitted the disease at different rates.

Read the article here.

Read a little blurb about the research from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, here.

Light, fertilization, and biodiversity

Fertilizing a grassland will cause plant biodiversity there to decrease. It’s not known why this is so, and one theory says that it is because some fast-growing species shade out slower-growing species. A recent study in the journal Ecology Letters says that it’s not a lack of light, or at least not just a lack of light, that is stifling diversity. The study found that the impact of light availability varied greatly in years when there were droughts.

In dry years more light meant less diversity, but in wet years, more light meant more diversity. Either way, fertilization meant species diversity went down, no matter what the light situation was.

With nutrient pollution such a widespread problem, getting to the bottom of this would be useful in protecting rare plants and threatened ecosystems.This paper doesn’t offer the answer, but adds another piece to the puzzle.

Find the paper here.

A previous paper on the subject appeared in the journal Science two years ago. Find that paper here.

Photo: Bobolink, a grassland bird, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Light, fertilization, and biodiversity

Fertilizing a grassland will cause plant biodiversity there to decrease. It’s not known why this is so, and one theory says that it is because some fast-growing species shade out slower-growing species. A recent study in the journal Ecology Letters says that it’s not a lack of light, or at least not just a lack of light, that is stifling diversity. The study found that the impact of light availability varied greatly in years when there were droughts.

In dry years more light meant less diversity, but in wet years, more light meant more diversity. Either way, fertilization meant species diversity went down, no matter what the light situation was.

With nutrient pollution such a widespread problem, getting to the bottom of this would be useful in protecting rare plants and threatened ecosystems.This paper doesn’t offer the answer, but adds another piece to the puzzle.

Find the paper here.

A previous paper on the subject appeared in the journal Science two years ago. Find that paper here.

Photo: Bobolink, a grassland bird, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service