Field sites

You'll never gain full insight into biological processes without getting your hands dirty first.

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The lab builds strength from integrated extensive fieldwork and a variety of lab approaches, including molecular and morphological analytical tools as needed. Here's a sampling of favorite field sites over the years.

Big Bend National Park and Black Gap Wildlife Management Area -- The Big Bend region of west Texas is the northern edge of the range for much biological diversity of the Chihuahuan Desert. That includes yuccas, with four species being dominant features of the landscape; we have done a variety of projects in the area since 1994, and there are plenty more worthwhile projects that could be done there.

The Chisos Basin in the heart of Big Bend N.P. contains a mixture of yuccas and agaves.

In a good flowering year, several thousand Y. rostrata flower on the slopes of Stairway Mountain at Black Gap.

Yucca torreyi dominates the desert floor, called bajadas; Beau Crabb (right, recognized by rangers by his wicked pole pruner) tested hypotheses of plants cheating on pollinators and of indirect mutualism between parasitic wasps and yuccas for his M.S. project.

Yucca carnerosana has very good flowering every 3-4 years, with thousands of meter-tall inflorescences in Big Bend populations; this picture from Big Brushy Canyon in Black Gap, 1994.

Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge -- The largest remnant of the once-extensive Rio Grande delta, Laguna Atascosa not far from Brownsville, TX, is biologically extremely rich and important/famous as a bird overwintering site. It is also an excellent place to work on plant-insect interactions, such as those involving the characteristic Yucca treculeana in the wet grasslands. For example, here is a chance to study herbivorous birds -- noisy groups of chachalacas move through the thorn shrub where they trash yucca inflorescences -- soft succulent tissue by any comparison. It may have an impact on plant reproductive success -- we don't know. Yet.

Y. treculeana is abundant in the mosaic of wet grasslands and impenetrable thornshrub that dominates Laguna Atascosa. A small bogus yucca moth (center) makes galls in the fruit wall. The female yucca moth pollinates the flowers. Laguna Atascosa is one of the last remaining places for doing community-level studies of yucca populations and their associates.

Oulanka Biological Station -- in northern Finland, 4 km south of the Arctic circle and a few km from the Russian border. Site of studies on Trollius europaeus (globeflower) and its associated anthomyiid fly pollinators in the riparian meadows along the Oulanka river -- couple of million flowers in a good year, and no darkness for a month and a half around midsummer. Come prepared for mosquitoes -- personal high was 32 smushed with one palm (the rest got away).

Trollius meadow with yellow trap for pollinator monitoring; mating Chiastocheta on Trollius

Forest reindeer were regular visitors at study sites; Oulankajoki around midnight --finish the dayπs sampling, do some midnight photography, and then relax in the sauna with a bottle of Lapin Kulta.

Archbold Biological Station -- in south-central Florida, with the largest remaining tracts of Florida scrub. An amazing field station both for research and teaching classes. We have done extensive behavioral, ecological, and phylogeographc studies of yucca moths over several years out of Archbold. If you want to do serious longitudinal studies in southeastern US, check out ABS.

Dave & Kari do their daily manipulations of a native yucca in the patchy Florida scrub; Kari pollinates a yucca flower while cursing Hymenorus densus, a beetle that destroys yucca flowers en masse.

White Sands National Monument and Jornada LTER site -- White Sands and Jornada (near Las Cruces, NM) are part of a biogeographally interesting area where three different regions converge. In consequence, the insect communities (and probably the yucca population genetics) are unusually complex here. At White Sands, Yucca elata is one of about a half dozen plant species that endures in the slowly moving sand dunes; they do this by rapid trunk elongation as a dune envelops it, and the trunks can be several meters in length -- check out this photo from the White Sands site. Jornada is a long-term ecological research site run by New Mexico State University. Three species of yuccas and more species of yucca moths occur in the protected area, which is an excellent prospect for long-term projects.

You've seen the pictures in every other desk calendar... Yucca elata growing in the gypsum sand dunes at White Sands are not only photogenic, but also potentially useful for studies that require simple plant communities and/or limited plant cover. Put in money for glacier sunglasses in your project budget, though -- the albedo is blinding.

Yucca elata is one of three species of yucca that coexist at Jornada LTER, about 15 km from Las Cruces.

Mexico -- Yuccas and their associated fauna occur throughout Mexico, from the Tamaulipan grasslands, the Sierra Madres and Baja Peninsula, to the high desert, the canyons of Queretaro, the rich desert of Tehuacan, and the rainforests of Veracruz and Chiapas. They make up vast forests on the plains, linger meshed in pine-oak woodlands, grow as epiphytes, or as elfin rings on the desert floor. Much of the yucca and yucca moth interaction diversity occurs only in Mexico, including many refugial organisms. In fact, understanding this portion of moth-plant interaction diversity arguably is key to understanding its evolutionary origins. Together with Manuel Balc·zar-Lara, I have worked on the Mexican moths, and with Jim Leebens-Mack we are working on the phylogenetic relationships of the plants.

Y. filifera, with its pendant inflorescences, grows in extensive forests in the deserts of northeastern Mexico. Picture from Matehuala, San Luis PotosÌ.

Yucca mixtecana in Oaxaca, flower, pollinator, and a bogus moth.

Manuel Balc·zar-Lara takes in enduring Y. decipiens in a heavily-grazed area on the outskirts of Durango. A pretty hot day at 44öC.

Cuatro CiÈnegas in the Mapimi region of the Chihuahuan desert is the home not only of the amazing desert lakes but also of several yucca species with relictual pollinators; in Tehuacan, the southernmost isolated portion of the Chihuahuan desert holds great biodiversity, including striking yuccas, huge barrel cacti, and Beaucarnea trees.

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Stalking the pollinators of Yucca queretaroensis will take you into amazing country in Sierra Gorda, an extension of the Sierra Madre Oriental. This is a conspicuous, 2-m tall plant that only was discovered in 1989 because of the inaccessible canyonland in which it grows. Drop down from Pinal de Amoles at 2400 m to 800 m through the canyon to the ruins of the 18^th century mission of Bucareli at its mouth, and you will pass a couple of very steep slopes that you can ascend to reach plant populations. We have not achieved our goal of identifying the pollinators of this unusual yucca yet. This is exceptionally dry country, in the rain shadow of the Sierra. In 1999, when we first visited the site, we saw evidence of fruit set on old stalks, so the pollinators are present, but no plant flowered that year. In 2000, same story. We have received reports from the area each year since then, the drought has not broken, and no plants have been seen in bloom. So if you need an excuse, and vertigo is not a problem with you...

Above from top left, the canyon from the top; a rock face with yuccas on the vegetated talus; goats on typical slopes; plants up close; sunset approaches on the high slope.

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In the northern Sierra Madre Oriental, Yucca linearifolia grows in rough country.

In the rich country of central Baja peninsula, yuccas and yucca moths (left) coexist with one of the handful of other cases of seed-for-seed mutualisms. It involves the cactus Lophocereus schottii (right) and the pyralid moth Upiga virescens; discovered in the last decade, it is being studied by Nat Holland, Ted Fleming, John Nason and others.

The inland Pacific Northwest U.S. -- The regions surrounding Moscow and Pullman ã eastern Oregon and Washington, Idaho, and western Montana-Wyoming ã are exceptionally diverse geologically and biologically. See the page on life in Moscow-Pullman for details. I have done fieldwork in this area off and on since first arriving as a postdoc.

In Hells Canyon, growth season starts in early February; prairie remnants in the Inland Northwest can be exceptionally forb-rich and great for studies of plant-animal interactions; granitic outcrops in the Palouse region create oases of woodland and rich woodland amid agricultural lands.

Grand Canyon -- Hesperoyucca whipplei occurs widely in California and northern Baja, but an isolated population persists in isolation in the lower Grand Canyon since the end of the latest glacial, some 6000+ years ago. We know that the moths are genetically distinct from other parts of the host range (Segraves & Pellmyr 2001), and there are many interesting ecological and genetic studies to be done here. Most plants grow on terraces and taluses, so a penchant for rappeling, rafting, and scrambling on loose boulders is a must. The flat terrace near center of the picture (~300 m below the rim) hosts a good yucca population.

Nikko, Japan -- The University of Tokyo owns a partly undeveloped botanical garden in Nikko, in the cool foothills of central Japan -- home of the shogun during the Shogunate period and the garden is neighbor of the Meiji emperor's summer palace. The garden is an uncommon, non-developed mid-elevation site for doing pollination work. Nearby is Shirane-san, a high peak in the Japanese Alps at the cusp between Sea of Japan/Pacific weather influences, with several meters of snow each winter, and in consequence very lush subalpine-alpine vegetation. I did work on pollination biology of Cimificuga in both areas.

In Nikko, Cimicifuga grows in the mesic forest, often near old shrines. Experimental work on C. simplex at the garden showed that butterflies respond to floral scent by lingering far longer on inflorescences while feeding, being better pollinators in the process.

Hokkaido, Japan -- On Hokkaido, both the central volcanic region and the western Shokandake mountains hold populations of open-flowered Trollius species that host anthomyiid flies.

Trollius japonicus is common in grassy wetlands, such as Uryunuma, in the Shokandake on the west coast of Hollkaido.

New Caledonia -- This island in the South Pacific, long isolated from adjacent Australia and New Zealand, is home to a large endemic component of basal angiosperms. In recent years, it has gained fame as the home of Amborella. We did work on the pollination biology of another relatively basal family of angiosperms, the Winteraceae, that has a great deal of diversity on the island.

If you want to experience an enduring example of classic European colonization, this island is a good study site, too.

The mountainous interior of New Caledonia ranges from xeric habitats to wet rainforest. This picture is from Mt Dzumac, on the dry aspect of the island.

Most members of the Winteraceae occur in the rain forest, including the recently described Exospermum cristatum.

Joshua Tree country -- The primary NSF-funded project today in the lab focuses on historical phylogeography and coevolution between joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) and their associated yucca moths. Joshua trees have a well-defined, far more fragmented population

structure today than they did during the latest glacial, and there is structured morphological and ecological variation in both plants and insects across the range.

Whereas the project spans all of the ~40 extant joshua tree populations, a strong base for the core project and several conncected behavioral and population genetic studies are run out of Joshua Tree National Park. For now, enjoy Wally Pacholka's 1997 picture-of-the-year image of comet Hale-Bopp crossing the sky above a joshua tree and a mjoave yucca in the park.

The cedar glades of Middle Tennessee -- In parts of Tennessee east and south of Nashville are open areas in deciduous forest with very shallow soil, and a vegetation with historical Great Plains associations. They are widely held to be the most important terrestrial communities for conservation purposes in the region. These are the main habitats for Yucca filamentosa in this area, and all members of the lab (whose main projects may have taken place elsewhere) were involved in various behavioral, ecological, and population genetic studies over the course of seven years, primarily in a superior glade known as Harding Glade.

Left, lower end of Harding Glade, one of the largest and most rich glades, where we tracked the resident yucca population from 1994 to 2000. Right, Josh collects behavior data from yucca moths at nearby Gwynn Rd site.

Left, Chad attempts to persuade a moth to check out his flower (seven moths flitting in the pic). Right, the Redlight Specials gather at the end of a busy evening of data collection to pay homage to a yucca and its residents -- from left, Deb Marr, Eric Tepe, Jim Leebens-Mack, Lindsey Elms, Kari Segraves, and Dave Althoff (red lights not to disturb the moths, dark clothing not to attract them).

There is a post script (or should we say Requiem) to Harding Glade. The Nature Conservancy long attempted to purchase this important tract of land, but the owner -- an out-of-state university with religious affiliation -- refused to sell for reasons of Greed. Instead, they eventually sold to a corporation that built a superspeedway on a huge tract of land including our study site. Lucky university -- the bid'ness was originally planned for an adjacent but more affluent county, but was denied permission there on grounds that it would destroy the quality of life for the locals. We lost Harding Glade and our two other major study sites between 2000 and 2001. The friendly locals that helped us and enjoyed following our studies over the years lost more.

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