Garden Scientist Maps Future of Rare Southwestern

Driving through the deserts of the American southwest in a dusty pickup truck, Chicago Botanic Garden post-doctoral research associate Shannon Still is on a quest to predict the future. He is not reading tarot cards, nor does he claim to be the next Nostradamus. He does, however, have a fairly good idea of where sileri, commonly known as Siler pincushion cactus, will live in 2050. That place is about five miles east of where it lives now.

The prickly 1½-foot-tall, pincushion-shaped cactus is extremely rare—just 30 known occurrences totaling approximately 10,500 are known in the world. It grows in the hot, dry gypsum habitat of the Strip, just north of the Grand Canyon, and if Still’s bioclimatic models are correct, it will drift steadily east over the next century, following the path of its shifting ecologic niche. In other words, it will migrate to a habitat where it can survive.

Recently, inside the Garden’s Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Conservation Science Center, Dr. Still unfolded plant population maps of the western United States and gestured to known species locations. Arrows on the maps aimed in dizzying directions—the route he predicts plants will travel over the next ten, 40, and 70 years. A popular theory among scientists is that as the planet warms, plant Garden scientist Shannon Still photographs a species of cactus. (Top, left to right): Escalante National Monument, west of Capitol populations will migrate north and to higher elevations. Reef National Park, south-central Utah; Jones catseye (Cryptantha Yet, Still is finding a more bewildering pattern. “What I’m jonesiana); Siler pincushion cactus (Pediocactus sileri); at the seeing is that distribution goes every which way. We’re not San Raphael Swell, south-central Utah. seeing a consistent migration direction, and the majority of distributions are getting smaller,” he said. 32 www.chicagobotanic.org/research www.chicagobotanic.org Conservation Science

www.chicagobotanic.org/research Continued on next page The real fun, however, takes place on the ground. Since on the ground. takes place fun, however, real The assistant with research has spent eight weeks 2012, Still Desert, Mojave validation trips to the on field Jensen Nick Utah, and portions of Nevada, Nevadas, the eastern Sierra are his distribution models predict areas In and Arizona. one-square-kilometer suitable for a species—approximately other notes plant and target the for searches parcels—he the geo- records He and common plants in the area. rare their plants, of number the notes and location graphic vegetation and plant species, soil stage, other flowering about the location. types, and anything remarkable is truthing,” “ground research, Still’s This important part of in the loca- used to determine whether plants actually live determined to be their tions computer-based models have locations locations, or known suitable habitat. Presence the suite of environmental a plant is found, provide where loca- Absence inhabits. currently species a that conditions are occur, to not known is species the where areas or tions, distribution also important. both can improve Having ecological understanding of a plant’s increasing models by a virtual some cases, a plant may not have species niche. In earth.the combing while it discover will Still but record, fortuitous encounter with a population of 300 His in all known increase percent sileri, a three Pediocactus truthing. ground individuals, happened through

The son of a horticulture professor emeritus at Ohio State Ohio at emeritus professor horticulture a of son The has seen evidence of climate change cohere Still University, grant support a three-year from With the past decade. over of Land Bureau the U.S. Department the Interior of from species distribution to create he is working Management, species, sensitive than 400 rare models for more a modest shift in the distribution of their suitable habitat— a modest shift in the distribution of their over north or ten kilometers five a species niche may move the change is significant. Nevertheless, a period of 50 years. studies, vulnerable to illegal harvest of the cacti Still Many and regional the potential for overharvest by and threatened suit- of percent 100 to 95 to lose up could development, emissions 2080. And, if carbon dioxide able habitat by widely used global climate change to continue according of those plants would lose suitable scenarios, 75 percent habitat for 2050. That means that the native habitat by viable plant commodities—Arabica coffee commercially as for example—may become extinct beans in Ethiopia, once-fertile habitat becomes unsuitable for growth. desert poppy yellow-flowered penstemon, cacti, including californica)(Enceliopis , and nakedstem sunray (Arctomecon place in the Garden’s takes of his work nudicaulis). Much where Laboratory, System) Information GIS (Geographic he uses sophisticated computer algorithms and global likely to plants are where climate change scenarios to show in the future. they may live where to predict and now live For many plants, warming trends will amount to only many plants, warming trends For

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If Still’s research involves predicting the future, other (Top, left to right): Sunlit peak, San Rafael Swell; Claretcup cactus scientists at the Garden are striving to change it. His work (Echinocereus triglochidatus)—not endangered, just pretty; is one piece of a larger, federally funded effort led by Mojave rattlesnake near Kingman, Arizona. Photos by Nick Jensen and Shannon Still. Garden conservation scientists to use ex situ conservation strategies, such as seed banking, to establish a repository of genetic material that can be studied and, ultimately, used to guide seed-collection efforts and develop seed transfer for rehabilitation of public lands in the western United zones for restoration and reintroduction programs. States. Kayri Havens, Ph.D.; Pati Vitt, Ph.D.; and seed Through this work, they may give rare plants like Siler bank coordinator Emily Yates are now using modeling data pincushion cactus a more hopeful future.

Predicted change in suitable habitat for Siler pincushion cactus (Pediocactus sileri), between now and the 2050s

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