[PCA] SAVE THE DATE // RSVP by May 9: Plant Conservation Alliance e-Meeting (May 11; 2-4pm ET), with invited speaker Dr. Dr. Sarah Truebe of the Sky Island Alliance

[Park, Margaret E]

Please save the date for our third Plant Conservation Alliance general meeting for the year 2022! Held remotely and open to all -- on Wednesday, May 11, 2022, from 2:00 - 4:00 pm ET. Join us in welcoming Dr. Sarah Truebe,  Habitat Conservation Manager, Sky Island Alliance



***PLEASE RSVP TO ATTEND THIS MEETING – SEE BELOW***

Presentation Topic: Sky Islands of the Desert Southwest


About our Speaker:

Sarah Truebe joined Sky Island Alliance in 2021 to lead the water program. She is focused primarily on the community science Spring Seeker program (skyislandalliance.org/springseeker) and is also responsible for habitat restoration around water sources for wildlife and other uses across the Sky Island region. Previously, she worked in natural resource management at Kartchner Caverns State Park in Arizona and in environmental sustainability service-learning at Stanford University. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona, where her major research interests included monsoons, fire, drought, caves, climate variability, hydrology, and science and society. Well before these scholastic endeavors, Sarah was born in Tucson, AZ and grew up watching monsoon cumulonimbus clouds form over saguaros and prickly pear, listening to curve-billed thrashers and cactus wrens chatter every morning, and playing in the dirt under the mesquite trees in her backyard. Sarah hopes that in the coming decades, our Sky Islands will resiliently weather climate change until we can come together globally to halt catastrophic impacts to these iconic and striking habitats. She also hopes the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico comes down in her lifetime, restoring migration pathways for the animals and people that rely on this land.

What will you learn?

In this talk, we will discuss springs in the Sky Islands. The Sky Island region stretches from southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico into northern Sonora, Mexico. With more than 50 different mountain ranges rising from desert seas, this area is home to jaguars, ocelots, coatimundi, javelina, saguaros, agave, and a wide variety of plants and animals, some of which are threatened or endangered. The Sky Island region does not have many free-flowing perennial rivers or lakes, making springs a critical water source throughout the region. Springs often have many microhabitats that harbor unique plants and invertebrates. Springs face many threats regionally, but also serve as refugia and loci of regrowth after disturbances like wildfire.

Sky Island Alliance is a nonprofit organization based in Tucson, AZ, and we work to protect and restore the remarkable diversity of life and lands in this region. We use a bilingual smartphone-based app called Spring Seeker to locate and monitor springs. We train volunteers in basic plant identification skills to be able to survey plant communities at springs. We’re gearing up four water-related habitat projects that will reduce erosion and restore native plant communities after fire, make water more available for wildlife, and exclude cattle to allow the native plant communities to rebound at locations in four different mountain ranges.

We will conclude with a short discussion of how we hope to align our conservation approach with the National Seed Strategy and the Plant Conservation Alliance’s national framework. Springs are in a unique position of being classified neither as groundwater nor as surface water in Arizona, making collaboration across entities critical to develop methods to protect these sensitive resources.

***TO ATTEND THIS MEETING, PLEASE***

RSVP by COB Monday, May 9 to margaret_park at fws.gov<mailto:margaret_park at fws.gov>

The meeting login details will be shared with all respondents via calendar invite and email by Tuesday, May 10.

This meeting will be hosted using Microsoft Teams. You will be able to join the meeting from the web or via the Microsoft Teams app<https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fteams.microsoft.com%2Fdownloads&data=04%7C01%7Cmargaret_park%40fws.gov%7Ca190159d43e2453c983308d9cf91e669%7C0693b5ba4b184d7b9341f32f400a5494%7C0%7C0%7C637769047803889538%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=ASM95k8rdBtuqp3rSsd%2BXpo%2Fay%2F8945I28qh7XvNOXE%3D&reserved=0>.


*** Information about the presentation is also available on our PCA Meetings page<https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.plantconservationalliance.org%2Fmeetings&data=04%7C01%7Cmargaret_park%40fws.gov%7C54f9b4f4003947effea408d8d7735348%7C0693b5ba4b184d7b9341f32f400a5494%7C0%7C0%7C637496237609173683%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=3JO0zuDuvM4Tr2IcMqzNgOkIXDKae2ykZVGwvBlsWbU%3D&reserved=0>.***



The PCA general meetings are open to everyone and follow this format:

>Updates on PCA Activities - learn about and get engaged in the Plant Conservation Alliance

>Invited Speaker – a topical presentation to explore any of the six focal areas identified in the PCA National Framework for Progress<https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blm.gov%2Fsites%2Fblm.gov%2Ffiles%2Fprograms_natural-resources_native-plant-communities_national-seed-strategy_pca_Framework_6.11.2020.pdf&data=04%7C01%7Cmargaret_park%40fws.gov%7Ca190159d43e2453c983308d9cf91e669%7C0693b5ba4b184d7b9341f32f400a5494%7C0%7C0%7C637769047803889538%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=z37dvLCHuHHfd%2F%2Bs1ihmlQ9iHjV3XBLmRDk9VG65BLE%3D&reserved=0>: collaborative conservation; education; restoration; research and development; sustainability; and information sharing

>Native Plants Roundtable - all participants are encouraged to share information on national native plant events and activities



— This meeting is brought to you by the Plant Conservation Alliance Speaker Organizing Team— Gary Krupnick (Smithsonian Institution) / Ray Mims (U.S. Botanic Garden) / Krissa Skogen (Chicago Botanic Garden) / Maggie Park (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service) / David Lincicome (Tennessee Dept of Environment & Conservation) / Andrea Williams (California Native Plant Society)
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