PS - WILD COACHELLA THE NATIONAL MONUMENT

The Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument: A Biodiversity Hotspot and a Climate Change Laboratory in Our Backyard

The superlatives that describe and define the Monument are many: It has the steepest vertical rise of any mountain in North America. At nearly two dozen species, it boasts more types of lizards than any other National Park or Monument in the U.S. There are plant species found here that occur nowhere else on Earth. Plus it is both the northernmost extent of the Baja California biogeographic province and the southern extent of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade biogeographic province.

Over the many climate shifts over the past two million years, fluctuating from an ice age to more comfortable warm temperatures more than 10 times, the Monument has accumulated species, providing them refuge with each temperature shift. Predictions for our current climate shift include warmer and drier conditions than anytime in that “recent” geologic history.

Employing the enthusiasm and energy of dozens of local “community scientists," the question we hope to answer is whether current trajectories, responses to the unprecedented warmth and aridity we have experienced so far, can tell us whether the Monument can still provide that climate refuge.

This discussion will be led by Cameron Barrows of the UCR Center for Conservation Biology and Colin Barrows from Friends of the Desert Mountains. Free. 

Register for the Wednesday Lecture: CLICK HERE

Space is limited, you RSVP will save you a spot.

Questions contact Scott email

Sponsored by The Friends of the Desert Mountains