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New rule prioritizes conservation on US public lands

News Feed
Friday, April 19, 2024

A new rule introduced by the Biden administration aims to balance conservation with economic activities on America's public lands, enhancing protections and sustainable use. Catrin Einhorn reports for The New York Times.In short:The rule impacts 245 million acres, promoting ecological restoration and compensating for environmental damage.Conservation will now be considered as significant as grazing, mining, and other land uses.The measure responds to the increasing environmental pressures such as climate-induced wildfires and droughts.Key quote: "As stewards of America's public lands, the Interior Department takes seriously our role in helping bolster landscape resilience in the face of worsening climate impacts." — Deb Haaland, U.S. Secretary of the Interior.Why this matters: This policy represents a strategic shift in how public lands are managed, intertwining ecological health with national economic and security interests, and addressing the urgent challenges posed by climate change. Read more from EHN's newsroom: Public lands are not neutral. We must grapple with their racist roots.

A new rule introduced by the Biden administration aims to balance conservation with economic activities on America's public lands, enhancing protections and sustainable use. Catrin Einhorn reports for The New York Times.In short:The rule impacts 245 million acres, promoting ecological restoration and compensating for environmental damage.Conservation will now be considered as significant as grazing, mining, and other land uses.The measure responds to the increasing environmental pressures such as climate-induced wildfires and droughts.Key quote: "As stewards of America's public lands, the Interior Department takes seriously our role in helping bolster landscape resilience in the face of worsening climate impacts." — Deb Haaland, U.S. Secretary of the Interior.Why this matters: This policy represents a strategic shift in how public lands are managed, intertwining ecological health with national economic and security interests, and addressing the urgent challenges posed by climate change. Read more from EHN's newsroom: Public lands are not neutral. We must grapple with their racist roots.



A new rule introduced by the Biden administration aims to balance conservation with economic activities on America's public lands, enhancing protections and sustainable use.

Catrin Einhorn reports for The New York Times.

In short:

  • The rule impacts 245 million acres, promoting ecological restoration and compensating for environmental damage.
  • Conservation will now be considered as significant as grazing, mining, and other land uses.
  • The measure responds to the increasing environmental pressures such as climate-induced wildfires and droughts.

Key quote:

"As stewards of America's public lands, the Interior Department takes seriously our role in helping bolster landscape resilience in the face of worsening climate impacts."

— Deb Haaland, U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

Why this matters:

This policy represents a strategic shift in how public lands are managed, intertwining ecological health with national economic and security interests, and addressing the urgent challenges posed by climate change. Read more from EHN's newsroom: Public lands are not neutral. We must grapple with their racist roots.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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New Study Shatters Long-Standing Myths About Primate Origins

Primates originated in cold environments, not the tropics. Their past adaptations reveal insights for conservation today. Many people picture our earliest primate ancestors moving through dense tropical forests, yet new evidence suggests they actually endured cold environments. As an ecologist who has spent years studying chimpanzees in Uganda and lemurs in Madagascar, I am deeply [...]

The first primates were about the size of a mouse lemur: tiny. Credit: Jason GilchristPrimates originated in cold environments, not the tropics. Their past adaptations reveal insights for conservation today. Many people picture our earliest primate ancestors moving through dense tropical forests, yet new evidence suggests they actually endured cold environments. As an ecologist who has spent years studying chimpanzees in Uganda and lemurs in Madagascar, I am deeply interested in the habitats that influenced our evolutionary history. These discoveries challenge long-held ideas about when and where our lineage first developed. Understanding the origins of human evolution is central to understanding ourselves. The same environmental pressures that shaped our ancestors continue to shape us today and will influence our future as well. Climate as a driver of evolution Climate has always played a critical role in determining which species thrive, which adapt, and which vanish. With global temperatures rising, insights from the past are more valuable than ever. A recent study led by Jorge Avaria-Llautureo at the University of Reading, along with colleagues, examined the geographic origins of primates and the climates of those ancient regions. The findings were unexpected: instead of emerging in warm, tropical habitats as previously assumed, the earliest primates appear to have lived in cold, arid environments. Teilhardina was one of the first primates. Credit: Mark Klingler, Carnegie Museum of Natural HistoryThese environmental challenges are likely to have been crucial in pushing our ancestors to adapt, evolve and spread to other regions. It took millions of years before primates colonized the tropics, the study shows. Warmer global temperatures don’t seem to have sped up the spread or evolution of primates into new species. However, rapid changes between dry and wet climates did drive evolutionary change. Earliest primates and their traits One of the earliest known primates was Teilhardina, a tiny tree dweller weighing just 28 grams – similar to the smallest primate alive today, Madame Berthae’s mouse lemur. Being so small, Teilhardina had to have a high-calorie diet of fruit, gum and insects. Fossils suggest Teilhardina differed from other mammals of the time as it had fingernails rather than claws, which helped it grasp branches and handle food – a key characteristic of primates to this day. Teilhardina appeared around 56 million years ago (about 10 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs) and species dispersed rapidly from their origin in North America across Europe and China. It is easy to see why scientists had assumed primates evolved in warm and wet climates. Most primates today live in the tropics, and most primate fossils have been unearthed there too. Cold origins and surprising habitats But when the scientists behind the new study used fossil spore and pollen data from early primate fossil environs to predict the climate, they discovered that the locations were not tropical at the time. Primates actually originated in North America (again, going against what scientists had once believed, partly as there are no primates in North America today). Over 56 million years, primates have evolved into all sorts of shapes and sizes. Credit: Monkeys: Our Primate Family exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland/Jason GilchristSome primates even colonized Arctic regions. These early primates may have survived seasonally cold temperatures and a consequent lack of food by living much like species of mouse lemur and dwarf lemur do today: by slowing down their metabolism and even hibernating. Challenging and changeable conditions are likely to have favored primates that moved around a lot in search of food and better habitat. The primate species that are with us today are descended from these highly mobile ancestors. Those less able to move didn’t leave any descendants alive today. Lessons for conservation today The study demonstrates the value of studying extinct animals and the environment they lived in. If we are to conserve primate species today, we need to know how they are threatened and how they will react to those threats. Understanding the evolutionary response to climate change is crucial to conserving the world’s primates, and other species beyond. When their habitats are lost, often through deforestation, primates are prevented from moving freely. With smaller populations, restricted to smaller and less diverse areas, today’s primates lack the genetic diversity to adapt to changing environments. But we need more than knowledge and understanding to save the world’s primate species, we need political action and individual behavior change, to tackle bushmeat consumption – the main reason primates are hunted by humans – and reverse habitat loss and climate change. Otherwise, all primates are at risk of extinction, ourselves included. Reference: “The radiation and geographic expansion of primates through diverse climates” by Jorge Avaria-Llautureo, Thomas A. Püschel, Andrew Meade, Joanna Baker, Samuel L. Nicholson and Chris Venditti, 5 August 2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2423833122 Adapted from an article originally published in The Conversation. Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.

Conservation
Forests
Climate

Key oceans treaty crosses critical threshold to come into force

A landmark global treaty to safeguard ocean biodiversity will take effect in January after receiving its 60th ratification, paving the way for new marine protected areas in international waters. Environmental groups hailed the move as a turning point for ocean conservation.

A landmark global treaty to safeguard ocean biodiversity will take effect in January after receiving its 60th ratification, paving the way for new marine protected areas in international waters. Environmental groups hailed the move as a turning point for ocean conservation.

Conservation
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See 15 Breathtaking Bird Images From the 16th Annual Audubon Photography Awards

This year’s competition expanded to Chile and Colombia and introduced new prizes focused on migratory species, habitats and conservation

See 15 Breathtaking Bird Images From the 16th Annual Audubon Photography Awards This year’s competition expanded to Chile and Colombia and introduced new prizes focused on migratory species, habitats and conservation Marta Hill - Staff Contributor September 19, 2025 12:02 p.m. A Brandt's cormorant carries red grape algae and seagrass in La Jolla, California. Barbara Swanson / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Plants for Birds Winner, United States and Canada From an island off the coast of Colombia, to northern Chile, to Washington state, the National Audubon Society’s yearly photography contest spread its wings and documented eye-catching birds across much of the Western Hemisphere. The conservation nonprofit revealed the prize winners in its 16th annual contest on Wednesday, featuring 17 overall winners and 15 honorable mentions. The submissions to this year’s contest were judged anonymously by two independent panels. For the first time, photographers from Chile and Colombia were invited to submit their work to the Audubon Photography Awards in a new contest alongside the long-standing one for photographers from the United States and Canada. These two South American countries boast some of the “most astounding avian biodiversity,” write the editors of Audubon magazine, and are home to many migratory birds that might breed in North America. Several of the species featured in this year’s winners—including the royal tern, snow goose and blackburnian warbler, which migrate between the South American countries and Canada and the United States—are vulnerable to climate change, the National Audubon Society says in a statement. With those facts in mind, this year’s contest includes two new categories: Birds Without Borders and Conservation. The former features birds with migratory journeys that cross international boundaries and the latter depicts conservation challenges currently facing avian species. “This is our first year awarding the Conservation prize, and the winning photographs powerfully capture both the challenges birds face and the ways they adapt,” says Sabine Meyer, photography director for the National Audubon Society, in the statement.Grand Prize Winners: Ringed Kingfisher and Magnificent Frigatebird A Ringed kingfisher takes off from the water after diving to hunt fish in Valdivia, Chile. Felipe Esteban Toledo Alarcón / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Grand Prize Winner, Chile and Colombia With every drop of water perfectly frozen mid-splash, the Chile and Columbia contest’s Grand Prize-winning photo captures a ringed kingfisher just after a dive. Photographer Felipe Esteban Toledo Alarcón was trying to photograph frogs’ mating rituals, when he got the opportunity to capture this crisp photo of the blue and white bird. Ringed kingfishers, the largest of the kingfisher species in the Americas, dive headfirst into their hunts for fish—literally. These birds perch at a spot up to 30 feet in the air, keeping a lookout for fish, then dive in when they see one, according to Audubon. “After the bird made six dives, I got the image that I’d been chasing: a kingfisher explosively rising out of the water, displaying its beauty, elegance and power,” the Chilean photographer tells Audubon. Nearly two dozen magnificent frigatebirds fly in front of the sun, which is ringed by a bright halo, in Teacapán, Mexico. Liron Gertsman / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Grand Prize Winner, United States and Canada The winner from the United States and Canada contest captures birds in a different way: in silhouette. Shot looking up at the sun in Mexico, the image by photographer Liron Gertsman reveals a flock of magnificent frigatebirds framed by a sun halo. “This image immediately stood out in this year’s competition. The layers are deep, the silhouettes remarkable and the whimsical, mystical feeling of the image is outstanding,” judge Daniel Dietrich tells Audubon.Conservation Winners: Burrowing Owl and Savanna Hawk A burrowing owl peers out from a stack of lumber on Marco Island, Florida. Jean Hall / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Conservation Winner Jean Hall’s striking image of a burrowing owl is the inaugural Conservation prize winner for the United States- and Canada-based contest. The owl—a “defiant guy,” as she tells Audubon—is sitting in a stack of lumber, a stark contrast to its normal nesting environment of underground burrows. Hall first found this owl on an outing with a biologist as part of her role as a volunteer with Audubon of the Western Everglades’ Owl Watch program. After spotting the bird’s unusual hangout spot on Marco Island in Florida, Hall went back on a handful of occasions, hoping to glimpse the owl again. Unlike most owl species, burrowing owls are diurnal, meaning they are more active during the daytime, at least during breeding season. “You just had to hope. You had to be patient. And finally, the light was decent—because you have to worry about the light—and he popped out at the right time,” Hall tells Smithsonian magazine. Burrowing owls usually nest in underground burrows, either by repurposing tunnels from prairie dog colonies or digging their own holes. The housing search is getting harder for burrowing owls, though, as suitable land is taken up by agriculture and housing developments, according to Audubon. “We humans continue to expand into wild places, often aggressively displacing local wildlife. This image shocked me immediately, because it shows that,” contest judge Lucas Bustamante tells the publication. “This lumber pile used to be a forest—now processed as timber—and yet the burrowing owl still finds habitat in such an unnatural place.” When Hall first started doing wildlife photography, she focused on beauty and behavioral shots, but one of the scientists she’s worked with over the years shifted her perspective on the role of her photographs. “I used to walk away when something awful was happening. I didn’t want to document it,” Hall tells Smithsonian magazine. “These biologists were telling me, ‘You’re going to make much, much more of an impact if you start documenting bad stuff.’ That was like a light bulb went on about treating this more journalistically.” Though she has been entering Audubon’s contest for about a decade and has been recognized in the top 100 images before, this marks Hall’s first time winning an Audubon contest category outright. “I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “It was a burrowing owl, which in many ways was my spark bird,” a birding term for the species that ignites someone’s interest in the animals. “I fell in love with burrowing owls on Marco [Island] so deeply.” A savanna hawk stands in front of a controlled burn that got out of hand in Colombia. Luis Alberto Peña / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Conservation Winner, Chile and Colombia The conservation winner from the Chile and Colombia contest similarly shows a bird in a bit of an unnatural setting. That is where the similarities end. Luis Alberto Peña’s photo captures a savanna hawk’s intense gaze against the striking background of a controlled burn of a rice field. “Attentive and patient, this bird never strayed from the dense smoke and heat; in fact, it returned again and again, hoping to hunt disoriented animals fleeing the flames,” he tells Audubon. “Before I left, I captured this visual testimony to one of the many ways that wildlife survives and adapts in the face of extreme environmental conditions.”Birds Without Borders Winners: Royal Tern and Snow Goose An adult royal tern feeds its young a fish on San Andrés Island, Colombia. Jacobo Giraldo Trejos / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Birds Without Borders Winner, Chile and Colombia The winners of the new Birds Without Borders category highlight animals more than 1,000 miles apart. Jacob Giraldo Trejos won the category in the South American contest with an eye-catching image of an adult and juvenile royal tern sharing a meal. Unlike most songbirds, these seabirds have a long adolescence, according to Audubon, with the parents feeding their hatchlings for up to eight months. “Many people think that dedication and affection for our young is exclusive to humans, but nature, as usual, proves us wrong,” the Colombian photographer tells Audubon. “I feel a deep respect for these birds’ efforts: Photographing this moment was a privilege worth every second—and every drop of sweat.” The photo’s technical qualities—its sharpness, soft background and well-controlled light—add to its visual effect, contest judge Natalia Ekelund tells Audubon. “The moment of the food being delivered in mid-flight, with the adult’s wings open and the terns’ gazes intertwined, creates a powerful visual narrative,” Ekelund adds. Thousands of snow geese at the moment the flock started to take off. Yoshiki Nakamura / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Birds Without Borders Winner, United States and Canada For all the sharpness the photo of royal terns brought, the North American Birds Without Borders winner brought just as much movement and blurring. Shot in Mount Vernon, Washington, photographer Yoshiki Nakamura’s image captures the “mesmerizing mixture of order and chaos” that the simultaneous launch of a flock of snow geese creates, he tells Audubon. “To express this ephemeral choreography, I used a slow shutter speed. The result is what I call a ‘melting flight’: a blend of motion, form and instinct,” Nakamura says to the publication. “What I find most beautiful is how this chaos has coherence. There are no collisions, no commands—just a shared sense of movement.” “Snow geese are creatures of habit,” according to Audubon, with mated pairs returning to the same spot every summer. Young birds learn these migration routes from older generations, creating huge flocks, sometimes numbering more than 10,000, in the same areas year to year. “The blurred wings of the lifting flock dominate upon first look. It takes little time to then get lost in identifying the hundreds of individual geese emerging from the chaos. Your eyes travel nonstop throughout the image as they seek explanation,” contest judge Dietrich tells Audubon. Here are more of the photographs honored in the contest, capturing eye-catching birds, their stunning behaviors and the habitats that help them thrive.Birds in Landscapes Winners: Northern Gannet, Blue-Headed Parrot and Chilean Flamingo Thousands of northern gannets sit atop a dark rock in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Joe Subolefsky / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Birds in Landscapes Winner, United States and Canada Two blue-headed parrots peer out from a tree near a road in Cali, Colombia. Shamir Shah / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Birds in Landscapes Colombia Winner A group of Chilean flamingos stand in Puerto Natales, Chile. Caro Aravena Costa / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Birds in Landscapes Chile Winner Plants for Birds Winners: Brandt’s Cormorant and Purple-Backed Thornbill A purple-backed thornbill dips its beak into a cluster of golden floewrs in Caldas, Colombia. Cristian Valencia / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Plants for Birds Colombia Winner A Brandt's cormorant carries red grape algae and seagrass in La Jolla, California. Barbara Swanson / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Plants for Birds Winner, United States and Canada Youth Winners: Blackburnian Warbler and Long-Eared Owl A long-eared owl flies above a marsh in Fremont, California. Parham Pourahmad / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Youth Winner, United States and Canada A blackburnian warbler perches on a branch, holding a month in its beak, in Valle del Cuaca, Colombia. Camilo Sanabria Grajales / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Youth Winner, Colombia and Chile Coastal Birds Winner: American Oystercatcher A black and white American oystercatcher feeds a chick a mollusk in Antofagasta, Chile. Francisco Castro Escobar / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Coastal Bird Chile Winner Female Bird Winner: Chipping Sparrow A chipping sparrow sits on a branch holding fine strands of material in her bill near Boise, Idaho. Sean Pursley / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Female Bird Winner, United States and Canada Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Conservation
Agriculture
Climate

Reclaiming the Udall Legacy: The Meaning of Conservation in Trump’s America

The environmental and legislative accomplishments of Stewart, Mo, and Tom Udall offer a roadmap for recovering from the damage of the Trump administration. The post Reclaiming the Udall Legacy: The Meaning of Conservation in Trump’s America appeared first on The Revelator.

The Udall name once meant something in the American West. For anyone anchored in the arc of modern conservation and environmental protection, to say “I worked for Tom Udall” was to evoke a legacy that coursed through some of the nation’s boldest acts: the Alaska Lands Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Wilderness Act, the creation and expansion of our parks and wild places. Yet standing recently in a room at Arizona State University’s Pastor Center for Politics and Public Service, introducing myself as a former press secretary to then-Rep. Tom Udall, I was met with puzzlement. The same when I mentioned Reps. Mo and Stewart Udall: blank faces. The loss is not just one of memory but of a deeper severing from the traditions that once tethered Arizona and the West to the idea that government must be a steward — a protector — of the land and its wild inheritances. This is not an accident of history. It is the product of years of unraveling, a process on full display under the Trump administration’s second term — a litany of reversals, repeals, and budget cuts whose cumulative effect is not merely policy drift but a deliberate retreat from the standards of stewardship once defined by the Udalls and those they inspired. In 2025, that wreckage is plain for all to see. The Dragon Bravo fire — born of lightning on July 4, ignited amidst the ponderosa and pinyon along the North Rim of the Grand Canyon — became, by August, the seventh largest wildfire in Arizona history, consuming over 145,000 acres. The firestorm devoured the historic Grand Canyon Lodge, the visitor center, cabins, employee housing — displacing hundreds of workers, obliterating irreplaceable cultural heritage, and closing the North Rim for an entire season. The devastation is not an act of nature alone but of policy: the result of shifts in land management, the expansion of industrial logging, and the hollowing out of federal firefighting resources. California, too, smoldered. The winter of 2025 brought 14 wildfires to the Los Angeles basin and San Diego County, driven by an overheated, drought-parched landscape and hurricane-force Santa Ana winds. Some 18,000 homes gone. Thirty lives lost. Fires now routinely surpass 100,000 acres. The Gifford fire alone burned over 104,000, emblematic of the new breed of “megafires” searing the American West with a frequency and intensity that is anything but natural. Yet in the teeth of these disasters, what does Washington offer? Not support, but a mandate to cut. FEMA — built to provide federal relief in times of catastrophe — faces deep reductions, the elimination of grant programs, and talk of outright abolition by December 2025. Money that once flowed to states for disaster planning, preparedness, and training is now “refocused” or slashed, in line with a Project 2025 playbook that makes every calamity a state or private problem. “States should do more,” the refrain goes, as if wildfires, hurricanes, and floods observed state lines. Yes, floods, like the ones that rains brought to Texas. Not the soft rains that nourish, but rains that fell like verdicts — hour after hour, day upon day, drumming against rooftops until walls buckled and rivers claimed the streets. In Houston, in Beaumont, in the low-lying neighborhoods of Port Arthur, water rose with a slow, implacable certainty, swallowing whole blocks and leaving only the pitched tips of roofs visible above the brown flood. This was not some act of God beyond imagining. The Army Corps of Engineers had warned for years of the vulnerabilities — levees unreinforced, reservoirs undersized, drainage systems designed for storms of a century past. But budgets were trimmed and plans shelved. In the second Trump term, disaster mitigation was not a priority; it was a line item to be cut. When the Brazos and Trinity rivers spilled over their banks, the toll was measured not just in the 68 confirmed dead, or the hundreds injured, but in the erasure of whole communities — trailer parks where families lived paycheck to paycheck, coastal towns whose tax bases will never recover. The survivors tell of a smell — oil, sewage, and rot — that lingered in the air long after the waters receded, a reminder that the flood was not just a natural disaster but a civic one, born of choices made in distant offices. And still, from Washington, the refrain: the states should do more. As if Texas, reeling from billions in damages, could single-handedly muster the resources once marshaled by a unified federal government; as if climate change respected state borders or political talking points. Everywhere, one sees the marks of a presidency not merely indifferent to the land, but hostile to it. This is not stewardship. It is liquidation. In the fevered logic of Trump’s second term, a national forest is not a refuge but an untapped ledger entry; a wildlife refuge is wasted potential until it yields oil or timber; a scientific agency is a nuisance until it can be defunded or dismantled. NOAA? Gutted. The Endangered Species Act’s definition of “harm”? Stripped so bare that the bulldozer becomes a legitimate management tool. The California condor, the ocelot, the Houston toad — each now stands closer to the abyss, not because of some unavoidable cataclysm, but because the law designed to save them has been willfully blunted. And yet, the Udall legacy endures because it was never about nostalgia — it was about action. Stewart Udall knew that progress came from building coalitions, passing laws with teeth, funding them without apology, and holding the line when industry or indifference threatened to breach it. That is still the roadmap. What must happen now: Restore and strengthen the Endangered Species Act — reverse habitat rollback rules and return “harm” to its full ecological meaning. Rebuild NOAA and FEMA’s capacity — not as partisan spoils, but as the scientific and logistical backbones of disaster resilience. Block industrial logging and extraction in public lands — using litigation, state-level protections, and direct action where needed. Invest in climate adaptation for vulnerable species — from condor release programs to amphibian habitat restoration. Mobilize locally and nationally — because the federal government, as we have just seen, can just as easily become the arsonist as the fire brigade. The Udalls gave us the scaffolding: laws, institutions, and an ethic that tied prosperity to preservation. Trump has shown us how quickly it can be dismantled. The choice before us is whether to stand by while the scaffolding is kicked away, or to rebuild it — stronger, higher, and impossible to topple. We do not lack for guideposts. We lack only the will to follow them. Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Scan the QR code, or sign up here. Previously in The Revelator: The Myth of the Cowboy and Its Enduring Influence on Public Policy The post Reclaiming the Udall Legacy: The Meaning of Conservation in Trump’s America appeared first on The Revelator.

Conservation
Climate
Government

This Rare, Endangered Orchid Only Exists in Two Locations. Can Dogs, Cows and Fungi Help It Thrive?

A Smithsonian ecologist is trying to restore the plant, Spiranthes delitescens, which grows on Arizona’s sky islands

This Rare, Endangered Orchid Only Exists in Two Locations. Can Dogs, Cows and Fungi Help It Thrive? A Smithsonian ecologist is trying to restore the plant, Spiranthes delitescens, which grows on Arizona’s sky islands Riley Black - Science Correspondent September 16, 2025 7:00 a.m. Ecological scent detection dog Circe searches for Canelo Hills ladies’ tresses in the tall vegetation Eirini Pajak At first glance, the orchid might seem like just another green wisp among the grass. Known to botanists as Canelo Hills ladies’ tresses and reclusive lady’s tresses, or Spiranthes delitescens, the plants’ stems grow up to a foot and a half tall and are dotted with tiny spikelike flowers. But these orchids don’t grow in just any fields. Canelo Hills ladies’ tresses are imperiled plants that pop up only in habitats so isolated by their elevation that naturalists call them “sky islands.” Because they are tied to specific environments, these orchids have always been rare. Now, their numbers are dwindling. Out of five locations in which Spiranthes delitescens has historically been found, she notes, the orchid is presently known to exist at only two, both in southern Arizona. To flourish again, the orchid needs help from humans and other organisms, including microscopic fungi, range cattle and specially trained dogs. Ecologist Melissa McCormick of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and the North American Orchid Conservation Center is among the scientists working to help the orchids recover. Part of the challenge in assisting Canelo Hills ladies’ tresses is where they grow. Named for the Canelo Hills Cienega Preserve, a Nature Conservancy wetland ecosystem intended to give them more places to take root, the orchid is found around rare water sources fed by springs in desert rock or in areas that otherwise are consistently moist enough for the plants. The habitats occur only in elevated locations above the desert floor, similar in composition but isolated from one another. Spiranthes delitescens, Canelo Hills ladies’ tresses orchid Eirini Pajak But moisture is only one of the orchid’s requirements. McCormick says that all orchids need associations with specific fungi. These fungal networks in the soil provide orchids with the nutrients they need to grow—an extremely close relationship that the plant maintains from seed through the rest of its life. Canelo Hills ladies’ tresses are particularly fussy about that relationship. “This orchid is very specific,” McCormick says. “It just needs one fungus and only one fungus species.” And that fungus is extremely difficult to find. She and her colleagues can’t just peek into the soil and see whether it’s present. This fungus, a species of Tulasnella, is detectable only through DNA sampled from the soil. The fungus is present in the two locations where the orchid grows. Both places are on privately owned cattle ranches. When the cows graze in these habitats, they trample other forms of vegetation and create hoofprints in the soil. Those hoofprints collect water, McCormick explains, which helps nourish the orchid and allows it to flower when the cattle are not present on the ranch. “It works just fine as long as the orchids are not flowering when the cows are there,” she says. Part of McCormick’s ongoing goal, however, is to find other locations where Spiranthes delitescens can grow. “While current populations are found only on private lands, it would be promising to see the species expand to public lands in the future,” says the Nature Conservancy’s stewardship program director, Erin Creekmur. Being able to easily study the orchid population on land dedicated to wildlife maintenance will help ensure the long-term survival of a species that, because of its stringent growing needs, has never been especially numerous. Researchers Melissa McCormick and Hope Brooks search for Canelo Hills ladies’ tresses in a cienega Eirini Pajak Fun fact: What are the sky islands of Arizona? These mountain ranges are elevated above the surrounding desert in the southeast area of the state. The orchid species Spiranthes delitescens grows in the rare wetlands of the sky island region. Melissa McCormick adjusting the focus of a video camera to record pollinators on the Canelo Hills ladies’ tresses orchid in the foreground Eirini Pajak Research on the orchid’s needs has led McCormick and colleagues to employ multiple techniques to better identify habitats that could support Spiranthes delitescens. A persistent supply of water, often from natural springs seeping from rock, is one consideration. The fungus is equally important. The areas where the orchid presently grows have the right fungus, McCormick notes, whereas tests of soil where the orchid used to grow have turned up less of the right fungus. Those areas might not be capable of hosting the plant right now. As the scientists expanded their search, they found places within the Canelo Hills preserve that contain the right fungus even if the plants themselves are not yet present. Now the researchers are getting ready to plant more than 10,000 orchids in these sweet spots. So far, researchers have planted 16 young orchids as a test. The next phase, after a controlled burn in the preserve to maintain vegetation, is a larger planting in multiple areas, including places where the orchid has not previously been found. Scent dog trainer Lauralea Oliver, pointing out areas for her dog, Muon, to search for orchids Eirini Pajak The pollinators the orchid requires are still little-known. As part of the planting initiative, McCormick and her fellow researchers have set up motion-sensitive cameras by some of the orchids to document which pollinators come to visit. So far, she says, these have mostly been bees, but a more definitive assessment is still underway. Canine assistants help keep track of how the orchids are faring. In previous surveys, McCormick says, “dogs were trained to key in on where this orchid is, visiting the existing populations and where the orchids used to be.” Dogs’ remarkable smelling abilities are important because the orchids are small and often hard to see, so a dog can smell what a human might step right over. The dogs found the orchids where they were known to be growing but did not in the places where the plant seems to have drawn back, and their skills will continue to be useful in monitoring where it’s appearing. Melissa McCormick looks on as ecological scent dog Circe receives her toy reward from trainer Lauralea Oliver Eirini Pajak The dedication to finding new ground for the orchid is about more than helping this single plant species. “The orchids are an indicator species of how the ecosystem is doing,” McCormick notes, and the conditions they need to survive are also important for various other plants, insects, fungi and associated organisms in the region. Caring for one plant ultimately means caring for an entire ecosystem. The orchid species may be small, but efforts to help these little plants grow will have reverberating effects for the other forms of life on the islands in the sky. Ecological scent detection dogs Muon and Circe enjoy a bit of downtime with trainer Lauralea Oliver, as Steve Blackwell of the Desert Botanical Garden walks ahead Eirini Pajak Get the latest on what's happening At the Smithsonian in your inbox.

Conservation
Mountains
Nature

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