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Over the past thirty years, late Quaternary environments in the
arid interior of western North America have been revealed by a
unique source of fossils: well-preserved fragments of plants and
animals accumulated locally by packrats and quite often encased,
amberlike, in large masses of crystallized urine. These packrat
middens are ubiquitous in caves and rock crevices throughout the
arid West, where they can lie preserved for tens of thousands of
years. More than a thousand of these deposits have been dated and
analyzed, and middens have supplanted pollen records as a
touchstone for studying vegetation dynamics and climatic change in
radiocarbon time (the last 40,000 years). Now, similar deposits
made by other mammals like hyraxes are being reported from other
parts of the world. This book brings together the most recent
findings and views of many of the researchers now investigating
fossil middens in the United States, Mexico, Africa, the Middle
East, and Australia. The contributions serve to open a forum for
methodological concerns, update the fossil record of various
geographic regions, introduce new applications, and display the
vast potential for fossil midden analysis in arid regions
worldwide. The findings presented here will serve to foster
regional research and to promote general studies devoted to global
climate change. Included in the text are more than two hundred
charts, photographs, and maps.
The Mayos, an indigenous people of northwestern Mexico, live in
small towns spread over southern Sonora and northern Sinaloa, lands
of remarkable biological diversity. Traditional Mayo knowledge is
quickly being lost as this culture becomes absorbed into modern
Mexico. Moreover, as big agriculture spreads into the region, the
natural biodiversity of these lands is also rapidly disappearing.
This engaging and accessible ethnobotany, based on hundreds of
interviews with the Mayos and illustrated with the authors'
strikingly beautiful photographs, helps preserve our knowledge of
both an indigenous culture and an endangered environment.
This book contains a comprehensive description of northwest
Mexico's tropical deciduous forests and thornscrub on the
traditional Mayo lands reaching from the Sea of Cortes to the
foothills of the Sierra Madre. The first half of the book is a
highly readable account of the climate, geology, and vegetation of
the region. The authors also provide a valuable history of the
people, their language, culture, festival traditions, and plant
use. The second half of the book is an annotated list of plants
presenting the authors' detailed findings on plant use in Mayo
culture.
One of the most recognizable animals of the Southwest, the desert
tortoise ("Gopherus agassizii") makes its home in both the Sonoran
and Mohave Deserts, as well as in tropical areas to the south in
Mexico. Called by Tohono O'odham people "komik'c-ed," or "shell
with living thing inside," it is one of the few desert creatures
kept as a domestic pet--as well as one of the most studied reptiles
in the world. Most of our knowledge of desert tortoises comes from
studies of Mohave Desert populations in California and Nevada.
However, the ecology, physiology, and behavior of these northern
populations are quite different from those of their southern,
Sonoran Desert, and tropical cousins, which have been studied much
less. Differences in climate and habitat have shaped the evolution
of three races of desert tortoises as they have adapted to changes
in heat, rainfall, and sources of food and shelter as the deserts
developed in the last ten million years. This book presents the
first comprehensive summary of the natural history, biology, and
conservation of the Sonoran and Sinaloan desert tortoises,
reviewing the current state of knowledge of these creatures with
appropriate comparisons to Mohave tortoises. It condenses a vast
amount of information on population ecology, activity, and behavior
based on decades of studying tortoise populations in Arizona and
Sonora, Mexico, and also includes important material on the care
and protection of tortoises. Thirty-two contributors address such
topics as tortoise fossil records, DNA analysis, and the mystery of
secretive hatchlings and juveniles. Tortoise health is discussed in
chapters on the care of captives, and original data are presented
on the dietsof wild and captive tortoises, the nutrient content of
plant foods, and blood parameters of healthy tortoises. Coverage of
conservation issues includes husbandry methods for captive
tortoises, an overview of protective measures, and an evaluation of
threats to tortoises from introduced grass and wildfires. A final
chapter on cultural knowledge presents stories and songs from
indigenous peoples and explores their understanding of tortoises.
As the only comprehensive book on the desert tortoise, this volume
gathers a vast amount of information for scientists, veterinarians,
and resource managers while also remaining useful to general
readers who keep desert tortoises as backyard pets. It will stand
as an enduring reference on this endearing creature for years to
come.
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