Dr. Graves Visits Dirca mexicana
Professor Bill Graves recently completed his fifth trip to the only known population of Dirca mexicana, a shrub that's being studied intensively in Dr. Graves' lab. Here, members of Dr Graves' research team are shown on the truck the group uses to reach the site along a remote road in the Sierra Madre Oriental of Tamaulipas, Mexico.
Here, Dr. Graves is downloading nearly a year's worth of environmental data from the Dirca mexicana site while other members of the research team pitch tents. Graves and his co-workers are gathering data to help protect this rare species in the wild, to assess the genetic diversity of the population, to determine how this species reproduces, and to characterize the environmental conditions the species can tolerate.
Additional information on Dr. Graves' research with Dirca spp. (leatherwoods) can be found at: http://jrbp.stanford.edu/db/projects/project_display.php?project_id=81
