LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Across the Mojave Desert, the dynamic Joshua Tree exists as the largest plant on the landscape.
Like everything in the desert, scientists are working to understand how these iconic species are responding to land use changes, growing risk of wildfires and annual shifts in temperatures and precipitation.
Joshua Trees speckle the Red Rock landscape, a popular area for getting out of the city.
“They’re pretty much relegated here to the desert and they’re just kind of neat to look at and they make nice photographic subjects,” Jay Ford, Las Vegas resident, told Channel 13.
Ford said he’s seen some changes to the area, like more fencing and more people.
“Back in the 70s, when I first came here, you might come out and not even see anybody," Ford said.
Joshua Trees play an important role in the desert ecosystem. They provide food and shelter to wildlife, plus they add dimension to what otherwise would be a 2-D desert landscape.
“Everybody seems to like Joshua Trees because of their twisted and tortured growth forms. And then the animals that you can see with them as well," Ecologist Todd Esque, explained.
Esque is an ecologist with the US Geological Survey, an agency that conducts scientific research for federal land management agencies.
Tracking the health of the Joshua Tree population over time is the ongoing work of Esque and other researchers.
“That is exactly what we’re trying to understand is how does it look now and how will it look in the future?” Todd said.
This year, these researchers are conducting field research in five national parks in the Southwest. This includes a Joshua Tree forest located near Meadview, Arizona within the borders of Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
At specific plots, these scientists record everything about the trees from their height to the number of buds on each limb. The last time a data collection occurred was 15 years ago. This is intentional, as it provides ample time for the trees to change, mature and adapt through multiple seasons.
They researchers are starting to see changes, but it will take more data collection to really understand the resilience of the Joshua Tree population
“With the megadrought that we’ve been in for 20 years, we’ve started to see the trees don’t look as good at lower, hotter elevations. And and we're seeing a lot more damage from from animals that live in the desert that are resorting as a last resort to Joshua trees, stripping the bark off them and things like that," Esque said.
While this research takes place on the ground, Esque and others have also utilized the sky to track Joshua Trees. Using Google Earth, satellite imagery is used to identify where Joshua Trees are and where they aren’t. Read more on this research here,
“So we could on our computers, look in all across the desert at high resolution, a quarter a kilometer, and determine whether or not there were Joshua trees on every square across most of the desert," Esque said.
