Tuesday, April 11, 2023 — 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Shane Jordan (CSUN Biology Dept. Masters Student) will present a program on April 11 at 7 pm describing his Mojave Desert research.
https://www.lasmmcnps.org/index.php/2-uncategorised/2-welcome
Climate relicts within arid environments may persist in isolated refugia if suitable conditions exist in microsites that differ enough from the regional environment to provide relief from drought and temperature stress. Disjunct populations of plant taxa associated with coastal and interior chaparral are found in just a few mountains within the Mojave Desert. These mountain biotic communities are ecological confluences where plant species characteristic of distant floristic regions often co-occur. Some of these species have widespread distribution in chaparral ecosystems of the California Floristic Province, a region of especially high plant diversity, and also in the warmer Madrean Floristic Province of Arizona. While the Mojave Desert does not fall within the CFP or MFP, the occurrence of coastal and interior chaparral species within this region is an interesting exception.
Biography: Shane is a native Californian and graduate student at Cal State Northridge interested in the ecology and evolution of chaparral and desert biotic communities. His research includes the response of chaparral birds to wildfire, and the biogeography of insular plant communities. He is currently studying the distribution of chaparral plants within desert mountains to characterize environmental influence on relict populations and patterns of community assembly where they occur in arid landscapes.
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