West Texas trip, July 2019

Many thanks to the Billy Carr Distinguished Teaching Fellowship awarded to Dr. Norma Fowler, which funded this trip!

Our thanks also to the staff and volunteers of Big Bend National Park and Black Gap Wildlife Management Area, all the experts mentioned below, and collaborator and friend Dr. Martin Terry and his wife Deirdre, all of whom facilitated or contributed to this trip, and to the Environmental Sciences Institute of the University of Texas at Austin, which awarded the Fellowship. Special thanks also to the WTNSP folks who drove one of our cars with a punctured tire back to the tire store in Alpine while we listened to Colin Shackelford!

Dr. Martin Terry (right), cactus expert par excellence, Sul Ross University professor, and a collaborator and co-author of Dr. Fowler, joined us for part of the trip.

Moving along a transect counting and measuring plants. Intensive data collection like this in the desert in summer requires getting up very early to be done by early afternoon.

Some cactus species were in bloom, making identification easier. This is turk's head (Echinocactus horizonthalonius). Photo by Carolyn Whiting.

Even though we were driving fourwheel drive vehicles, we sometimes had to stop and "improve" the road to make it passable - in this picture, we're clipping thorny shrubs. Folks in west Texas seem to have a very generous idea of what a passable road is. Photo by Carolyn Whiting.

JD (James) Newsom, Executive Director, Big Bend Conservation Alliance, introduced us to many of the current environmental issues in the region over dinner our first evening in west Texas. Left to right: Tristan Heinen, Ashley Green, Norma Fowler, Deirde Blinka, Martin Terry, Whitney Behr, Carolyn Whiting, JD Newsom, Becca Carden. Photo by a friendly waitperson.

Colin Shackelford, Assistant Director of the West Texas Native Seeds Program, a joint program of the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M University - Kingsville and the Borderlands Research Institute for Natural Resource Management of Sul Ross University, and co-worker David Jalali showed us how they produce certified seed of native plant species for land restoration projects in West Texas.

We had a very useful conversation with Jeanette Jurado (3rd from right), botanist and Park Ranger, Big Bend National Park, about BBNP plants and plant communities.

Dagger Flats looked like a garden in bloom.

Prickly pear (Opuntia sp.) and ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens) at Dagger Flats

We saw the edge of the area of the recent Castolon wildfire in BBNP. It was still too dangerous, due to smoldering logs, to enter. Note the burned but resprouting mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) trees.

Madrone (Arbutus xalapensis) on the Window Trail, BBNP.

Our campsite in the Chisos Basin campground, BBNP.

The non-native invasive giant cane (Arundo donax) near the Rio Grande, BBNP.

The non-native buffelgrass (Pennisetum ciliare) in Black Gap Wildlife Management Area. This grass increases the likelihood of fire in the desert. Image by Carolyn Whiting.