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In a Mojave aster flower, a small bee sleeps deeply. At night, the pale lavender petals close, creating a safe resting place. In the morning, as birdsong sounds through the desert, the flower opens to reveal its tenant.
Here in Southern California, amid the vast and arid landscape of the Mojave Desert, it is just one of many natural treasures hidden from view.
Wearing long sleeves, trousers and wide-brimmed hats to protect themselves from the bright sun in a cloudless blue sky, a team of four led by Madena Asbell hunker down in the sand in search of another treasure.
They are looking for a plant called erodium texanum (common names Texas cranesbill or heron’s bill), a type of herb native to California. More specifically, they are looking for its seeds.
“There’s so much life here,” says Asbell, “but it’s easy not to realize that when you’re in the desert.”
Asbell is the director of plant conservation for the Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT), a nonprofit land conservation organization dedicated to preserving and protecting California’s Mojave and Colorado desert landscapes.
A quarter of the state is desert and is home to approximately 2,400 plant species, according to MDLT. Eight years ago, Asbell had an idea. What if there was a way to preserve the ecosystem, centered around the seeds that make all life here possible? The result was the Mojave Desert Land Trust seed bank.
“The goal is to preserve this amazing genetic diversity that we have and make it available for species recovery or reintroduction, should a disaster occur that wipes out a population,” Asbell says. “Plants are the foundation of most ecosystems, so when we protect these plants, we also protect everything that depends on them, like desert tortoises, burrowing owls and pollinators.”
Five million seeds and counting
In an ever-changing climate, the seed bank was exactly the kind of “proactive” idea the organization was looking for, says Kelly Herbinson, executive director of MDLT.
“As a Land Trust, we recognize that just protecting land or purchasing land to protect it will not be enough – that we needed to take additional steps to truly invest in that land,” Herbinson says.
In 2016, Mojave Desert Land Trust officially launched the seed bank project, which has since been described as a “Noah’s Ark” for Southern California.
Three white refrigerators at MDLT headquarters in Joshua Tree, California, house the collection. According to the Land Trust, there are more than 5 million seeds from nearly 250 species.
The seeds arrive from the field teams and undergo a “cutting test” to determine viability – confirming that the seed pods are full and that there has not been too much damage caused by insects or fungi, making the seeds worth saving. save.
They then go into paper bags on racks to dry, before going into jars in the refrigerator for long-term storage.
There are all kinds of jars and sizes on the shelves, from small, donated jars of Gerber baby food to larger jars of pickles – each decorated with white labels with the name of the seed, the number of jars in the collection and the number of seeds.
Just like the desert itself, the seed bank contains all kinds of variations. Some seeds are light and wispy; some are skinny or round. Others are denser, like peppercorns, while another resembles pumpkin seeds. There are shades of brown, red and olive green.
Asbell says work at the seed bank includes scouting, collecting, processing and database management.
Last year, MDLT received a $3.2 million grant from the State of California Wildlife Conservation Board to expand the project.
“We have already been able to supply seeds to researchers studying the effects of climate change on specific species in our seed bank,” Asbell adds. “And knowing not only what you have collected, but also where it came from in a very specific way, is very important for restoration.
‘You can’t just throw seeds on the ground… You have to know where that seed comes from, what population, at what altitude, and make sure it’s the right seed for the right place. These are things we can do through the work we do.”
Help the future of the Joshua tree
The urgency of this work has increased. California has felt the effects of climate change, from more frequent and intense wildfires, Herbinson says, to an influx of invasive grasses that are not only choking parts of the desert landscape but also fueling the wildfires.
“Climate change brings droughts and longer-lasting droughts, putting pressure on desert ecosystems even though they are adapted to drought,” says Asbell.
“We are facing truly unprecedented challenges that threaten our very existence, and it is truly amazing to be able to preserve the genetic diversity of the planet for a future time when it may be needed – it is truly crucial work,” she adds to.
The desert itself is “the kind of place where you can walk past it and look at it and think there’s nothing there,” Herbinson says. “But in reality it is incredibly biodiverse and full of life. It’s just secret and hidden in ways that aren’t obvious.”
That means it is not as well protected as other ecosystems, she adds, such as rainforests or oceans – where more colorful trees and wildlife are found.
Yet the Mojave Desert has its own iconic tree: the Joshua tree.
“We have an incredible endemic species that is very charismatic and has a very special structure,” says Asbell. “It is widespread in the landscape, but also very endangered. That is why we are very concerned about the future of the Joshua tree and are working very hard to protect it.”
A kind of yucca, the twisted one, Dr. Seuss-like tree, which lends its name to a national park in the same area, is “unlikely to persist due to our changing climate,” Herbinson agrees, “because their seeds are largely dispersed by rodents.”
To survive, there will likely come a time when the trees will have to migrate to more “suitable habitat,” she adds — ideally cooler and at higher elevations. But that distance is beyond the reach of the rodents, which disperse seeds only up to 30 meters from the tree. That’s where the seed bank could help.
“It means we can help the Joshua tree migrate faster than it would naturally, and help that species survive the changing climate well into the future in a way that it wouldn’t if we wouldn’t do that job,” Herbinson says.
About 70,000 Joshua tree seeds are currently stored in the seed bank, some of which can be planted in cooler locations if necessary. The key, according to Asbell, is balance: taking just the right amount to sustain a restoration project in the event of an emergency, but not so much that the natural ecosystem is disrupted.
‘This is an ancient landscape, she says. “It’s quite profound to think about the longevity of many of these organisms, and how much history they’ve gone through.”
“Seeds are life,” Asbell adds, “and I don’t know of anything that gives me as much pleasure as growing a seed. … It’s life-affirming. And in the world we live in today, you really have to hold on to that and keep it close.”
CNN’s Adeline Chen contributed reporting.
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