Research
The Golden Barrel Cactus | So Common, Yet Endangered
Golden Barrel Cactus The golden barrel cactus is a mainstay of desert landscapes and is one of the most popular cactus species in the world. Although easily grown in nurseries to meet this demand, the golden barrel is still facing an uphill battle for survival in the...
The Incredible, Edible Saguaro Fruit
Photo by Michael Searcy Ripening in the hottest, driest time of the year, saguaro fruit provide important moisture and nutrition to animals and insects in the Sonoran Desert before the summer monsoon rains. With each saguaro able to produce an average of 150 fruit,...
Wildfire Awareness Month
Week 4 | RestorationThe Sonoran Desert expands from Central Arizona south into the Mexican state of Sonora and the Peninsula of Baja California. This beautiful region of the world is at risk from increasingly intense and frequent wildfires, a worsening drought and...
A Backstop to Extinction
This article ran in the Winter 2019 Sonoran Quarterly issue Those infatuated with the Sonoran Desert recall the allure of towering saguaros, the herbal smell of creosote and verdant trunks of palo verde trees. The unfortunate truth is that this fragile biodiversity is...
Too Hot, Even for Monarchs
Lack of rain and hotter weather lead to record low butterfly season The monarch butterfly population is in decline. Due to their magnificent migration, almost all US monarchs are in a few locations during the winter, allowing biologists to count and estimate the...
Monsoon Marvels
Trees bring surprises in the Sonoran Desert monsoon The cloudy days, the high humidity and afternoon thunderstorms. For many Arizonans, these are the signs of monsoon season. If you look to the trees, you will see the fascinating insects that signal it is monsoon...
