I’m very excited that the first paper from my PhD dissertation is published online. This paper uses ecological theory to ask how interactions between plants and microbial communities in the soil can influence coexistence among competing plant species.
there is a war going on in america
its victims are women americans and african americans and latino americans and native americans and muslim americans and queer americans and immigrant americans
its perpetrators are white man americans
when they dont hurt us directly they tell us to move on from the hurt we feel they make us feel bad for caring for wishing we could help
but in a war we can fight back at first we can fight back with kindness at first we can limit how far we go out of our way
but in a war there comes a time, a place when the totality of our attention ought to be trained on a single goal the goal of preserving the people we love the goal of preserving the people we have never met but we wish we did
with every injustice every white supremacy inspired mass shooting every attack on womens rights every insult of african american heritage every threat to latino american communities every landgrab from native americans every insult thrown at muslims every indication that immigrants are not welcome
and
every expression of the fact that white men neither feel nor fear nor appreciate the devastation these cause
i inch closer and closer to embracing the fight back.
I had the incredible opportunity to explore Tejon Ranch with friends from the UCLA Birding Club and the UCLA Botanical Garden. I had heard to Tejon as the largest privately held property within California and knew that the landscape was relatively undeveloped. I also knew that the managers of the property plan to develop a new >20,000 unit housing development – a plan that has been much criticized by a variety of environmental groups. There was lots more about the political back-and-forth that I did not know about – like the ranch managers banning one of the most knowledgeable botanists of the region – but I also didn’t know just how incredible this landscape is. I will share some of the beauty of the landscape here.
We began the trip by visiting grasslands towards the western portion of the reserve. This portion has sandstone-derived soils, and the grasslands here were home to lots of beautiful poppies, pincushions, California goldfields, lupines, etc.
