BajaNomad

San Diegan finds rare plants on Guadalupe Island

BajaNews - 5-16-2010 at 09:51 PM

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/may/16/postcard-guad...

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Jon P. Rebman, curator of botany at the San Diego Natural History Museum, recently returned from a research trip to Mexico's Guadalupe Island. Here's a summary of the trip, which included the possible discovery of a new type of plant. Dr. Rebman wrote the report for Science Quest:

During the previous expedition ten years ago, I swore that I would never return again until the goats had been removed due to the extreme impacts of their grazing activities. It looked a bit like a lunar landscape at that time with only a few plant species still remaining on very steep cliff areas and large, old (probably more than 150 years) trees that were unable to reproduce because the seedlings were being gobbled up as fast as they could germinate.

However, due to the major efforts of the Mexican Government and a non-profit conservation organization (GECI) many of the non-native, feral animals are now gone. The goats were removed a few years ago and only a few “judas” goats remain and the packs of feral dogs are now gone. They are now working on the feral cats that have caused the extinction of the Guadalupe Storm Petrel and (that) they are also causing severe impacts to the native and endemic bird species.
Plant life of Guadalupe Island.

During this recent trip, I was very pleasantly surprised to see a major difference in the vegetation. Many of the native and endemic plant species were coming off the cliffs and were re-populating many of the island habitats. Also, in the last few years Steve Junak and others have re-discovered some species that were thought to be extinct (e.g., Satureja palmeri) and even documented a large shrub (Ceanothus arboreus) that had never been documented on the island before. This species may have had a very large and long-lived seed bank and have now finally been able to establish without the impacts of goats.

The reason for this visit was to see this island in an El Nino year and see how the plants are responding. The group of people involved included myself, Bart O’Brien and Sula Vandeplank from Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, Steve Junak from Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, Tom Oberbauer with the County of San Diego, but also an botanical expert on Guadalupe, Alan Harper who facilitated the trip finanicially and I think through the Jiji Foundation (need to check this with him), and Julio the GECI person in charge of the conservation efforts on the island, and his great staff at the biological research station of the Island. The group of participants are part of a larger binational project to determine the rare plant species of northwestern Baja California although none of our Mexican colleagues were able to go on this trip due to time contraints.

During our trip, we were all surprised to see so many native plants coming back and we discovered a few species that have not been seen in many, many years e.g., Hesperocnide tenella (also maybe a new taxon on this island, but it needs more taxonomic work), Pellaea mucronata, new populations of the “previously thought to be extinct” Satureja palmeri. Throughout the trip we found totally new populations of the endemic plants that were almost driven to extinction and are now trying to make a come back. Our biggest discovery is a plant in the Asteraceae found near the pine populations that might turn out to be not only a new species, but maybe even a new genus. We will need to do some extensive taxonomic work on the specimens once they are dry so it may take some time to verify this though.

This was very exciting trip, although exhausting physically due to the steep terrain, difficult rock substrates, strong winds, etc. But, it was all worth it!

DianaT - 5-17-2010 at 09:02 AM

That is exciting. It is great to see positive ecological changes happening.

Dr. Rebman is the one eco mujeres is going to check with regarding the unique plant in the San Hipolito area.

He is the curator of the Department of Botany at the San Diego Natural History museum and the photos and specimens of that unique plant at the museum are from one of his research trips.

I posted the link in the other thread to The Flora of Baja California and for any Baja plant enthusiasts, it is worth checking out.

Mexitron - 5-17-2010 at 04:37 PM

That's great to hear the island's making a comeback! Thanks for posting Diane. I would love to go to Guadalupe one of these years---guess I'd better start checking that link you posted more often to watch for expeditions...plant nerds unite!

DianaT - 5-17-2010 at 04:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Mexitron
That's great to hear the island's making a comeback! Thanks for posting Diane. I would love to go to Guadalupe one of these years---guess I'd better start checking that link you posted more often to watch for expeditions...plant nerds unite!


You really need to meet las ecomujeres, Debra and Pacifica from Mulege and Berkeley-----you do have their website???? If not

http://www.lasecomujeres.org/

Boy, do I need to start studying!

Mexitron - 5-17-2010 at 06:32 PM

Thanks for the tip Diane...it'd be fun to go out botanizing with them for sure.