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“Wait, how many branches was that?” — Community monitoring of Joshua trees launches with leadership training

Earlier this month, community members from across the Mojave Desert came together at the Transitions Habitat Conservancy field station in Puma Canyon in the desert hills above Wrightwood, California, with a deceptively simple mission: to figure out how to count Joshua trees.

The volunteer leaders — from the California Native Plants Society, the Mohave Desert Land Trust, and the Transitions Habitat Conservancy — spent the Veteran’s Day weekend at Puma Canyon to learn a protocol for demographic surveys of Joshua tree populations, guided by Willamette University Associate Professor of Biology Chris Smith and his collaborators on the Joshua Tree Genome Project, US Geological Survey ecologist Todd Esque and CSU Northridge Assistant Professor of Biology Jeremy Yoder

USGS ecologist and JTGP collaborator Todd Esque explains how the challenges faced by Joshua tree at different stages of its life cycle. (Photo by Jeremy Yoder.)
USGS ecologist and JTGP collaborator Todd Esque explains the challenges faced by Joshua tree at different stages of its life cycle. (Photo by Jeremy Yoder.)
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