The ambitious effort to document California’s changing deserts.

Patton, a retired mammologist, is trapping and releasing desert wildlife as part of an ambitious project to repeat surveys conducted by renowned ecologist Joseph Grinnell from 1908 to 1939. Known as the ‘father of field notes’, Grinnell criss-crossed California in his Ford Model T to catalogue its birds and mammals. His descriptions are so complete that researchers today can compare the density and distribution of animal populations then and now.

http://www.nature.com/news/the-ambitious-effort-to-document-california-s-changing-deserts-1.22799

Posted on October 11, 2017 03:21 PM by biohexx1