[Enviro-lunch] Save the date! Enviro-Lunch Seminar 9-26-2022 12-1:15PM PST, Dr. Jon P. Rebman of The Nat San Diego, "Lost, Rediscovered, and Extinct Plants of the Baja California Region"

[Anna Jurusik]

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We cordially invite you to join us next week, Monday September 26th at 12:00PM-1:15PM PST via Zoom for our Enviro-Lunch seminar series co-organized with ESS-190 Undergraduate Seminar at UC Merced with guest speaker Dr. Jon P. Rebman, Mary and Dallas Clark Endowed Chair/Curator of Botany at the of The Nat, San Diego Natural History Museum!

Lost, Rediscovered, and Extinct Plants of the Baja California Region
Dr. Jon P. Rebman
San Diego Natural History Museum
September 26th, 2022
 12:00-1:15PM PST
via
https://ucmerced.zoom.us/j/85854124987

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Dr. Jon P. Rebman

Abstract: As a result of data compiled in the annotated, voucher-based checklist of the vascular plants of Baja California, Mexico published by Rebman and co-authors in 2016, the flora of the Baja California peninsula and adjacent islands includes approximately 4400 different plants, of which 26% are endemic to the region. Consequently, this floristic publication also identified several plants in the region that are very rare, often threatened, and only known from one to very few collections.


It is suspected that at least five endemic plant species in the region are extinct, of which three were only known from Guadalupe Island. Five other endemic species are presently lost with no extant, recently documented populations known, but it is hoped that these species likely exist somewhere in the region and have not yet been encountered. There is an estimated 121 different native plants that are lost from our current floristic knowledge and have only been documented with one historic voucher specimen in the region. Of these, 16 species are likely extirpated due to the impacts of livestock, feral animals, and urbanization in northwestern BC and on Guadalupe Island. On a positive note, at least 23 species, of which 14 are endemic, have been rediscovered and documented recently in the region.


As part of an ongoing project, Rebman and colleagues received a National Geographic Society grant to revisit the type localities of 15 endemic and “lost” species in order to try and re-discover them for science and determine if the populations are at risk. During two years of fieldwork, the team re-discovered 10 of 15 lost plants.


About Jon P. Rebman, Ph.D. Jon P. Rebman, Ph.D. has been the Mary and Dallas Clark Endowed Chair/Curator of Botany at the San Diego Natural History Museum (SDNHM) since 1996. Dr. Rebman is a plant taxonomist and conducts extensive floristic research on the Baja California peninsula and in San Diego and Imperial counties of California. He leads various field classes and botanical expeditions each year and is actively naming new plant species from the region. His primary research interests have centered on the systematics of the Cactus family in Baja California, especially the genera Cylindropuntia (chollas) and Opuntia (prickly-pears). However, Rebman also does a lot of general floristic research and he has co-published the new Annotated Checklist of the Vascular Plants of Baja California, Mexico and the most recent edition of the Checklist of the Vascular Plants of San Diego County. He has over 30 years of field experience with surveying and documenting plants including rare and endangered species.  As a field botanist, he is a very active collector of scientific specimens with his personal collections numbering over 37,000. He is the director of the San Diego County Plant Atlas project (www.sdplantatlas.org<http://www.sdplantatlas.org>) and identifies/verifies all of the new specimens (currently over 72,000) coming into the herbarium through this scientific endeavor. As the curator of the SD Herbarium at the SDNHM, he is in charge of this dried plant specimen collection that contains over 285,000 specimens dating back to the 1870s. Rebman published the newest edition of the Baja California Plant Field Guide with co-author Norman Roberts in 2012, and is working on a new bilingual, plant field guide for the Cape region of Baja California Sur.

The desert regions of Baja California and southern California satisfy my need for scientific adventure while providing a sense of excitement towards botany, reverence for nature and its unaltered beauty, appreciation for the complexity of natural history, and an overall feeling of peace and purpose.
                                                                  — Jon P. Rebman

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Thank you so kindly to our last week's speaker, Dr. Michael Philben of Hope College for an excellent talk "Rethinking carbon and nitrogen isotope fractionation during soil organic matter decomposition"!


We’ll "see" you there!



Kind regards,

Enviro-lunch coordinators Anna Jurusik and Teamrat Ghezzehei, PhD.

ESS-190 coordinators Jorge Armando Montiel Molina, PhD., Carolin Frank, PhD., and Justin Yeakel, PhD.


About Enviro-lunch


Subscribe to our listserv here! https://lists.ucmerced.edu/mailman/listinfo/enviro-lunch


Fall 2022 Line-up (in progress)

Date

Speaker

Affiliation

9/12/22

Chelsea Arnold, Ph.D.

University of California Merced

9/19/2022

Michel Philben, Ph.D.

Hope College

9/26/2022

Jon P. Rebman, Ph.D.

The Nat, San Diego Natural History Museum

10/3/2022

TBD

TBD

10/10/2022

Jason Diogo Pereire Bezerra, Ph.D.

Instituto de Patologia Tropical e Saúde Pública

10/17/2022

Rose Shilito, Ph.D.

Desert Research Institute; Army Research Laboratory

10/24/2022

Zhi (Luke) Wang, Ph.D.
California State University, Fresno

10/31/2022

Robin Trayler, Ph.D.

University of California Merced

11/7/2022

Rafael Bello-Bodoy, Ph.D.

Autonomous University of Baja California, Mexico

11/14/2022

Safeeq Khanm Ph.D.

University of California Merced

11/21/2022

Tetsu Tokunaga, Ph.D.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

11/28/2022

Sheng Wang, Ph.D.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

12/5/2022

Rebecca Abney, Ph.D.

University of Georgia


What: An informal and collegial session where faculty, visiting scholars, postdoctoral researchers, staff, and students have the opportunity to discuss their past and/or current research, and more. This year we welcome 80 undergraduate students enrolled in ESS-190 to join the conversation! https://soilphysics.ucmerced.edu/envirolunch.html<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/soilphysics.ucmerced.edu/envirolunch.html__;!!DZ3fjg!_cxaM91btptMGOIdckdP0yK2VWD18dbs_kPpkRQLR3FZmy83nHN6kQrTlBj8kgQyYhRhRGMvQcf8lPfl6L6Jqq1qdg$> (website under construction, please pardon any errors)

When: Mondays 12:00p-1:15 pm (PST)

Where: We will host Enviro-Lunch virtually via ZOOM this semester

Who: Our audience typically spans across natural sciences from faculty, students, and staff, but also attracts engineers, social scientists, and more.

How: A ~30-40 min for presentation with ~15-20 min for Q&A/discussion over Zoom. This year we are coordinating with ESS-190, an undergraduate seminar series that will interface with the seminar. (note: only ESS-190 students will meet in person)

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