WERC Highlights -- February 1999

President's Executive Order on Invasive Weeds Cheered in California: Bruce Ritchie, environment reporter for The Press-Enterprise in Riverside interviewed USGS scientist Jeff Lovich of the Western Ecological Research Center February 3 for a news story about what the federal effort to combat foreign plant species means to southern Californians. Lovich, who is coordinator for the USGS Weeds in the West program, reported that one in five plant species found in California are not native to the state. (Jeff Lovich, Riverside, CA, 909/787-4719)

Saving the Southwest from Invasive Saltcedar with Insect Biocontrols: USGS scientists from the Western Ecological Research Center and Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center will meet February 11 in San Diego with other members of the Saltcedar Consortium to develop detailed programs to monitor the impact on the ecosystem of two insect species to be released to feed on saltcedar. With over 600,000 hectares of riparian areas of the Southwest infested with saltcedar (also known as tamarisk), a plant that has displaced native willows, release of the leaf beetle and manna mealy bug, which feed on saltcedar in China and the Dead Sea area, is expected to contain the plant's rampant spread. Saltcedar can spread upstream 20 kilometers per year, and each plant can produce 500,000 seeds the size of a pinhead, equipped with a hair to help in wind dispersal. Additionally, saltcedar is more prone to fire than native willows, further threatening habitat used by such species as the endangered Southwestern Willow Flycatcher, which in some riparian areas nests within saltcedar habitats. USGS scientists Andrea Atkinson, Ann Dennis, Charles Drost, Bill Halvorson, Barbara Kus, Jeff Lovich, and Mark Sogge are working collaboratively in the interagency group that includes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Agricultural Research Service (USDA) in this multi-year project. The consortium is working to ensure the success of introducing nonnative insects to control the spread of the invasive exotic shrub in what is being called one of the greatest experiments in the Southwest. (Jeff Lovich, Riverside, CA, 909/787-4719; Mark Sogge, Flagstaff, AZ, 520-556-7311 ext 232)

Article Highlights USGS Efforts in National GAP Analysis Project: USGS ecologist Mike Kunzmann was interviewed by Sami Lais of Government Computer News for the February 22 issue of the magazine. Lais described the Arizona GAP data warehouse, where Kunzmann and staff and students at the University of Arizona manage and serve information from century-old documents and more than 100 databases and of research on endangered plants and animals to anyone who needs that information. Internet visitors can ask questions, search the repository, and retrieve information from a website managed cooperatively by the USGS and Advanced Resources Technology program of The University of Arizona's School of Renewable Natural Resources at the URL http://nbii.srnr.arizona.edu/nbs/gap/gapdata.html. (Mike Kunzmann, Tucson, AZ, 520/621-7282)

Examining Biological Research in the Mojave Desert: A unique forum will bring together researchers and managers to examine the status of scientific knowledge in the Mojave Desert at the Mojave Desert Science Symposium in Las Vegas, Nevada, February 25-27. The USGS Western Ecological Research Center as principal sponsor will highlight the studies of the Biological Resources Division and cooperators/collaborators in the Mojave Desert Ecosystem and get feedback from client agencies on the relevance of USGS research and their future research needs. In an ecosystem where complete recovery from degradation may require over 3,000 years, both scientists and managers are concerned about the large areas of Mojave Desert that have been adversely affected by off-highway-vehicle use, overgrazing by domestic livestock, agriculture, urbanization, construction of roads and utility corridors, air pollution, and military training exercises. (Jeff Lovich, Riverside, CA, 909/787-4719) Official news release

Desert Tortoise Study in Park Science: USGS scientists Jeff Lovich, Phil Medica, Hal Avery, Katherin Meyer, and Alan Brown of the Western Ecological Research Center and Gillian Bowser of NPS reported their preliminary research findings in the February issue of the NPS journal Park Science. In two years of study, including an El Niņo period, the researchers found that when desert tortoises have an abundance of food plants, more females reproduce and they produce more clutches of eggs. The researchers also found that regardless of climate conditions, the number of eggs in a clutch stays relatively constant. Study sites are located in Joshua Tree National Park and Mojave National Preserve in California, and on Bureau of Land Management sites near Palm Springs, California, Piute Valley, Nevada, and St. George, Utah. The study runs through the year 2000 in some sites, and will provide natural resource managers with locally and regionally specific information on reproductive output of the federally threatened desert tortoise. (Jeff Lovich, Riverside, CA, 909/787-4719)

Red-legged Frog Field Work: A narrative discussing how field work is conducted in the search to find the causes of amphibian declines will appear in the February issue of Scientific American. USGS scientist Gary Fellers of the Western Ecological Research Center was interviewed November 30 by W. Wayt Gibbs, senior writer for the magazine. Fellers demonstrated how to equip with radio transmitters 11 red-legged frogs he captured at Point Reyes National Seashore that night. (Gary Fellers, Point Reyes, CA, 415/663-8522 x236)