NMSU Climate Talk Looks at Landscape Changes in Chihuahuan Desert

By MICHAEL HERNANDEZ
https://www.krwg.org/post/nmsu-climate-talk-looks-landscape-changes-chihuahuan-desert

The Chihuahuan Desert is full of shrublands. That didn’t always used to be the case. Michael Hernandez spoke with a research scientist at New Mexico State University ahead of her upcoming climate change talk about the desert’s changing landscape.

Dr. Debra Peters is a research scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Jornada Experimental Range north of Las Cruces.

Peters said desert landscapes have changed in the past­–and that can help us understand how climate change may impact vegetation.

Peters said a process called desertification turned the Jornada del Muerto more desert-like over the course of a century.

From the 1850s through the mid-1900s, she said factors like severe long-term drought and cattle overgrazing turned the region once covered by perennial grasslands into a landscape dominated by shrubs such as mesquite, creosote and tarbush.

“They were always here, they’re actually native species but they were in small abundances,” Peters said. “So, they were scattered around and then they with many, many head of cattle and severe drought… the shrubs expanded and the grasses died out. And so now we have very few perennial grasses and lots and lots of shrubs and that’s the landscape that you see today.

But Peters said studies at Jornada have found changes in vegetation taking place since then, such as the introduction of novel species and the switch from shrub growth back to grasses.

“Our landscapes are very dynamic instead of just a one-way change from grasses to shrubs, they can go from shrubs towards grasslands, they can go between different shrub systems, they can actually have other types of grasses come in from South Africa. So, it’s a very dynamic system across the landscape. We talk about landscape change instead of just one direction which is desertification,” Peters said.

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