Ecology Explorers educational data: vegetation data from multiple school locations in the central Arizona-Phoenix area

The Sonoran Desert has the most diverse native plant species of any desert in the world. Many plants are uniquely adapted to living here and they are part of food webs that include animals and insects that also are adapted to desert living. Phoenix is an ever-expanding urban area located within the Sonoran Desert. Scientists are studying the impact of this urbanization on plant communities. Over the past 100 years, people have removed a lot of native vegetation and planted nonnative plants, trees, and shrubs. But there are still some desert remnants – areas that have been preserved as Sonoran Desert landscape – within the Phoenix metropolitan area. CAP LTER scientists are conducting plant surveys across the Phoenix Metropolitan area. They will be comparing the survey results to studies done 20 years ago. They also are interested in comparing vegetation in desert remnants to that in residential areas, parks, golf courses and vacant lots. You can participate in this study by comparing schoolyard and/or backyard data to desert remnant data and sharing this informationwith CAP LTER scientists. You may also decide to correlate your vegetation studies with the LTER Ecology Explorers’ bird and insect studies.