Biodiversity Surveys

Compiling local floras (comprehensive plant species lists) of defined areas is one method of documenting the biodiversity and biogeography of a larger region. These studies also reveal species and communities of special conservation concern.

• Arizona Upland Flora: Ironwood Forest National Monument, AZ

  Museum botanists have been interested in the plants in the ranges west of Tucson for nearly 30 years of field work by Museum botanists, and recently completed a three-year intensive survey of the for a and vegetation of Ironwood Forest National Monument funded by the Bureau of Land Management. The flora covers five mountain ranges and will greatly expand out knowledge of the plant diversity of the Arizona Upland Subdivision of the Sonoran Desert.

• Arizona Upland Flora: Picacho Mts., AZ

  Wiens is studying the plants of this isolated desert mountain range north of Tucson. The southernmost populations of central Arizona species are present in relictual chaparral and woodland communities at the higher elevations.

• Arizona Upland-Thornscrub Flora: Magdalena Palm Canyon, SON

  The palm canyon in the Sierra Babiso between Magdalena and Cucurpe in north-central Sonora supports a relictual flora including the northernmost records of many tropical plants and the boa constrictor. Several species endemic to the Sonoran Desert Region (Anisacanthus andersonii, Hesperaloe nocturna, Justicia sonorae, and Perityle vandevenderi) were described from the area. The flora will summarize collecting efforts that began with Forrest Shreve and Ira Wiggins in 1934.

• Baja Succulents Study

• Central Gulf Coast Flora: Sierra Bacha Floristic Survey, SON

  The plants of the Sierra Bacha on the coast of the Gulf of California have been of interest since the only mainland boojum tree (Fouquieria columnaris) population was discovered in 1922. A preliminary list of the plants by Museum botanists was included in the nomination of the range as a Sonoran protected natural area in 1991. A publication of this local flora will include a summary of all relictual populations of Baja California plants in Sonora.

• Vizcaino Flora: Cataviña, BC

  Cataviña is a very scenic granite boulder area in central Baja California in the Valle de los Cirios Biosphere Reserve in the Vizcaino Subdivision of the Sonoran Desert. A joint publication with botanists from the Museum and Centra de Investigación y de Educación Superior de Ensenada will summarize plant-collecting efforts beginning with Ira L. Wiggins in 1930, and be the first flora for the unique boojum tree-cardón habitat. A study of plant macrofossils preserved in packrat middens by Van Devender and Julio Betancourt will provide a record of the vegetation and climate on the Baja California Peninsula for the last 40,000.

• Sonoran Desert Flora: SW Arizona

  Richard Felger is leading a team of botanists in writing a book that summarizes the flora of southwestern Arizona that includes Organ Pipe Cactus National, the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range, and the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. It will be the first regional flora supported by a rich packrat midden fossil record. Hundreds of species were identified in middens radiocarbon-dated as far back as 43,300 years ago. It will be a companion volume to Felger's Flora of the Gran Desierto and Río Colorado of Northwestern Sonora.

• The Convolvulaceae of Sonora

  Research associates Dan Austin and Richard Felger and Van Devender are compiling a summary of the diverse Convolvulaceae (the morning glory family) in Sonora. Thus work will be the culmination of decades of floristic and taxomonic work on this group in the Sonoran Desert Region.

• Sierra del Viejo flora

  The Sierra del Viejo is an isolated limestone mountain range between Caborca and Libertad in northwestern Sonora.It has a unique Sonoran Desert flora with relictual populations of both Baja California and Chihuahuan Desert species, most notably the Endangered Nichol's turk's head cactus (Echinocactus horizonthalonius var. nicholii). Although Van Devender first visited the area in 1977 and Dimmitt and George Montgomery in 1983, the floristic inventory is preliminary. This is an area worthy of future study.

• Regional Biotic Inventory Database

  Museum biologists have long wanted the ability to generate lists of the plants and animals of specified areas from a given family of a single mountain range to the biota of our entire region. We are slowly compiling a master database of our own and other digital species lists that will eventually enable us to answer these questions with ease. The database is linked to our nomenclature and GIS databases.

• Herbarium Development: University of Arizona, Universidad de Sonora - Hermosillo, Centro de Investigaciones de Noroeste - La Paz

  Museum botanists have expanded the knowledge of plants in the Sonoran Desert Region by depositing research vouchers specimens into many herbaria, especially the University of Arizona Herbarium (11,603 specimens). Collections have also helped to develop herbaria at the Universidad de Sonora in Hermosillo (6007 specimens) and the Centro de Investigaciones de Noroeste in La Paz (1902 specimens).