How do humans restructure the biodiversity of the Sonoran Desert?
Hope, D*,1, Gries, C1, Kaye, J1, Zhu, W2, Stuart, G1, Oleson, J1, Katti, M1, Warren and N Grimm, P1, 3, 1 Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA2 SUNY-Binghamton, Binghamton, NY, USA3 Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA ABSTRACT- Humans exert a profound effect on the Sonoran desert ecosystem. An extensive integrated field inventory was conducted to study broad-scale patterns of biodiversity across the entire urbanized, suburbanized, agricultural and surrounding desert landscape of the Central Arizona-Phoenix region. We used a probability-based dual-density tessellation stratified design to survey diversity of perennial plants, pollen, birds and sample soil chemistry at 204 sites in 2000, supplemented with geographic and socioeconomic variables from existing databases and the US Census. Dominantly geomorphic controls on spatial variation in perennial plant diversity and soil nitrogen concentrations in undeveloped desert, were replaced by variables such as current and former land use, f
