Changing Plant Life of La Frontera: Observations on Vegetation in the U.S./Mexico Borderlands

Originating in a symposium on "Vegetation and Flora of La Frontera" held at the American Institute of Biological Sciences to honor the late Forrest Shreve, pioneer desert ecologist, this collaboration of outstanding biologists, environmentalists, and climatologists from both sides of La Frontera presents a new agenda for study of the strikingly diverse shrub and grassland ecosystems of the U.S./Mexico border.

The twenty-two contributors focus their expertise on historic cross-border changes in vegetation stemming from disparate land-use practices in the United States/Mexico border region--La Frontera--a 100-km-wide strip on either side of the international boundary. The diversity of scientific approaches includes fire histories, pollen studies, repeat aerial and ground photographic analyses, botanical surveys, biogeography, and paleoecology, to name a few. Changing Plant Life of La Frontera is richly illustrated with Landstat images, repeat ground photography, vegetation and reference maps, landscape photographs, and numerous graphs and diagrams.

"This book will not only provide a useful ecological background for the many interested in border studies, but will also stimulate additional collaborative investigations, in both the United States and Mexico, of the wide range of serious environmental problems in La Frontera."--Dr. Paul S. Martin, emeritus professor of geosciences, The Desert Laboratory, University of Arizona

Grady L. Webster is emeritus professor in the department of Evolution and Ecology at the University of California, Davis.

Conrad J. Bahre is a professor in the department of Land, Air, and Water Resources at the University of California, Davis.