Jim Malusa- PhD
- Research Scientist (retired) at University of Arizona
Jim Malusa
- PhD
- Research Scientist (retired) at University of Arizona
Repeat photography post-wildfire and Invasive species control
About
50
Publications
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Introduction
I'm fascinated by patterns of distribution, particularly plants. I'm also fond of maps, and benefit from my association with the GIS lab (the "ART" lab) in our department. With the assistance of the lab, I make vegetation maps for southern Arizona, from the top of the Chiricahua Mountains to the Yuma Dunes, combining the latest technology (e.g., the GISCloud phone app) with a love of walking.
Skills and Expertise
Current institution
Publications
Publications (50)
A floristic account is provided for the cactus family as part of the vascular plant flora of the
contiguous protected areas of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Cabeza Prieta National
Wildlife Refuge, and the Tinajas Altas Region in the heart of the Sonoran Desert in southwestern
Arizona. The modern native cactus flora includes 35 taxa in 12 gen...
A floristic account is provided for the grass family as part of the vascular plant flora of the
contiguous protected areas of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Cabeza Prieta National
Wildlife Refuge, and the Tinajas Altas Region in southwestern Arizona. This is the second largest
family in the flora area after Asteraceae. A total of 97 taxa in 4...
Beginning in 2007 in and around the Huachuca Mountains, the Coronado National Forest
and other partners have been mapping ecosystems at multiple scales. The approach has focused on
identifying land type associations (LTA), which represent the sum of bedrock and superficial geology,
topography, elevation, potential and existing vegetation, soil prop...
The expansion of the grass-fire cycle in the deserts of North America is driving ecosystem level transformation from patchy desertscrub to invasive grassland. A novel fire regime in the Sonoran Desert is forcing a new approach to land management, where there are currently more questions than answers. What is the ecological trajectory of the Sonoran...
A map package that can be opened with ArcMap or ArcPro, showing the vegetation units in the Chocolate Mt Aerial Gunnery Range, and the sample sites and routes taken by the surveyors. Mapping was at the scale of association and alliance.
A comprehensive study of the flora and vegetation of the Chocolate Mt Aerial Gunnery Range in SE California. Approximately 300 species were documented, with vouchers at the University of California, Riverside and Arizona Western College in Yuma, Arizona. The gunnery range is managed by Marine Corps Air Station - Yuma.
Report submitted to the Range Management Office of Luke AFB, Arizona. Vegetation of the Barry M. Goldwater Range - East was described and mapped at the alliance, association, and subassociation levels. Areas burned in the 2005 wildfires were compared to unburned areas. Valley vegetation types varied from saltbush to sand dunes to creosote-mesquite...
Vegetation map of the Barry M Goldwater Range - East, presented here as an ESRI map package that can be opened in ArcMap or ArcPro.
In the southwestern United States, non-native grass invasions have increased wildfire occurrence in deserts and the likelihood of fire spread to and from other biomes with disparate fire regimes. The elevational transition between desertscrub and montane grasslands, woodlands, and forests generally occurs at ∼1,200 masl and has experienced fast sub...
A photo guide to common plants of the Cabeza Refuge, followed by a key to the vegetation types.
PDF of map showing vegetation associations of the Cabeza Prieta NWR and adjacent BLM lands.
PDF of map showing vegetation sub-associations of the Cabeza Prieta NWR and adjacent BLM lands.
Final Report describing purpose, methods and results of vegetation mapping on the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, Arizona.
Large-scale control of invasive plants can benefit strongly from reliable assessment of spatial variation in plant invasibility. With this knowledge, limited management resources can be concentrated in areas of high invasion risk. We assessed the influence of spatial environments and proximity to roads on the invasibility of African mustard ( Brass...
A preliminary vascular flora is presented for the Sierra la Buenos Aires west of Fronteras, Sonora, based on historical collections and collections and observations made during two Madrean Discovery Expedition trips in 2016. The known flora contains 408 taxa in 82 families and 257 genera, with Asteraceae (52 taxa), Fabaceae (47 taxa), and Poaceae (...
About 25,000 acres of Chiricahua Mountains burned in the 1994 Rattlesnake fire. The 2011 Horseshoe II fire re-burned these acres, and much more – virtually the entire range. A year earlier, 2010, a vegetation mapping project photo-documented a variety of vegetation types, but for this poster we focus on the Madrean Pine-Oak Woodland. Subsequent pho...
Map of vegetation subassociations of the Barry M Goldwater Range West
Map of vegetation associations of the Barry M Goldwater Range West
The purpose of this Cooperative Agreement was to develop a comprehensive vegetation map for the Barry M. Goldwater Range West (BMGR West) under management by the Marine Corps Air Station Yuma (MCAS Yuma), Yuma, Arizona. The vegetation map will allow effective management of the vegetation communities on the BMGR West and also provide a baseline for...
A floristic account is provided for the mustard and frankincense families as part of the vascular plant flora of the contiguous protected areas of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, and the Tinajas Altas Region in the Sonoran Desert of southwestern Arizona. The mustard family in the flora area includes 23 g...
A floristic account is provided for three eudicot families as part of the vascular plant flora of the contiguous protected areas of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, and the Tinajas Altas Region in the heart of the Sonoran Desert of southwestern Arizona: Berberidaceae with 2 species, Bignoniaceae with 1 sp...
A floristic account is provided for the morning glory family as part of the vascular plant flora of the contiguous protected areas of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, and the Tinajas Altas Region in the heart of Sonoran Desert in southwestern Arizona. The family includes 11 species in 4 genera (Cuscuta, E...
A floristic account is provided for seven eudicot families as part of the vascular plant flora of the contiguous protected areas of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, and the Tinajas Altas Region in southwestern Arizona: Acanthaceae (5 genera, 7 species), Adoxaceae (1 genus, 1 species), Aizoaceae (2 genera,...
• Under cool season conditions, Sahara mustard germination is light-inhibited; it will only sprout when buried deeply enough to block light. Such conditions are met typically in soils that are relatively mobile, such as dunes or along the banks of ephemeral watercourses, or in disturbed areas along roads.
• Sahara mustard germination rate (mean > 8...
A floristic account is provided for the eleven monocot families except the grass family as part of the vascular plant flora of the contiguous protected areas of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, and the Tinajas Altas Region in southwestern Arizona: Amaryllidaceae, Asparagaceae, Commelinaceae, Cyperaceae, H...
A floristic account is provided for the Aristolochiaceae and Saururaceae (Magnoliids) as part of the vascular plant flora of the contiguous protected areas of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, and the Tinajas Altas Region in southwestern Arizona—the heart of the Sonoran Desert. This floristic treatment inc...
An introduction is provided for the modern and fossil vascular plant flora of the contiguous protected areas of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, and the Tinajas Altas Region in southwestern Arizona—the heart of the Sonoran Desert. These three entities encompass 514,242 hectares (1,270,700 acres), approxim...
Population study of Erigeron lemmonii
This flora of the vascular plants of the Tinajas Altas region, within the Lower Colorado Valley subdivision of the Sonoran Desert of southwestern Arizona, includes the present-day species as well as fossils recovered from packrat middens. The vegetation and flora are dynamic, changing even now, and have changed dramatically during the past millenni...
Narración de las expediciones realizadas por el norteamericano Jim Malusa, en su calidad de botánico, a lugares inóspitos o inseguros de diferentes países de América, Africa, Asia, Europa y Oceanía. La característica peculiar de sus viajes fue la utilización de la bicicleta para llegar a su destino.
Ample winter-spring rains in southwestern Arizona in early
200 I allowed us to map the range of the exotic Brassica
tournefortii in the Mohawk Sand Dunes. The mustard has
colonized habitat ranging from creosote flats to dune crests,
but it is most successful along ephemeral watercourses, the
base of north-facing dunes, and along roads. An estimated...
This report is yet a work in progress. It compiles available information about the biological resources present in Sonoran Desert National Monument, located in south central Arizona. We documented the species richness of the Monument by searching the scientific and agency literature, collecting specimen information from the University of Arizona, i...
First collection of a rare species, Berberis harrisoniana, from the Sand Tank Mts, Arizona.
I examined the seasonal and diurnal xylem pressure potentials of natural hybrids between two species of pinyon pine in Arizona, Pinus californiarum and Pinus edulis. The parent species differ mainly in the number of needles per fascicle (one versus two) and the seasonal distribution of precipitation characterizing their ranges. The hybrid trees hav...
Discrete qualitative and continuous quantitative characters ("gap-coded") are used in a parsimony analysis of the phylogenetic relationships of the pinyon pines. Cladograms constructed using all the data (both discrete and continuous characters) are congruent with those constructed with the continuous characters deleted from the data set. The conti...
ABsTRACT The reproductive ecology of Chihamalus anisopoma and Tetraclita stalactifera is compared in order to understand how their life histories function in the context of their present environment, and what selective forces might have shaped their life histories. C. anisopoma is common in the lower intertidal of the Gulf of California. It initiat...
Abstract. The function of the labial spine and the feeding behavior of the predatory gastropod Acanthina angelica were observed under controlled conditions. Long- and short-spined snails were presented three size classes of barnacle prey. The mode of attack was related to the length of the labial spine and the prey size. The spine was observed to f...
