In just 6 days of scientific exploration, a team of 34 scientists, students, photographers and volunteers documented the presence of over 930 species of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, insects, land snails, and plants including two species never-before recorded in the remote, rugged and lush Sierra La Madera mountain range of Sonora.

These discoveries were part of the Madrean Archipelago Biodiversity Assessment (MABA), a three-year project of Sky Island Alliance (SIA), a non-profit conservation organization based in Tucson, Arizona. The project, principally sponsored by a grant from the French-based Veolia Environment Foundation is an ambitious effort to document the biodiversity and to preserve the biologically rich environments of the Mexican Sky Islands.

This third major MABA expedition to document the unique animals and plants of the Sonoran Sky Islands was to the Sierra la Madera (formerly Oposura) near Moctezuma in central Sonora, 120 miles south of the Arizona border city of Douglas. Partners for this expedition led by SIA were the Universidad de la Sierra (UNISIERRA, Moctezuma), the Universidad de Sonora (UNISON, Hermosillo), and the Reserva Forestal Nacional y Refugio de Fauna Silvestre Ajos-Bavispe (Ajos-Bavispe National Forest and Wildlife Reserve). This Expedition was a unique collaboration between research biologists and students from four Mexican and two US universities and the Ajos-Bavispe Reserve staff. The expedition team came together from Arizona, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Sonora and Mexico City, and also included five staff from Mexico's Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP), traveling in a convoy of thirteen 4-wheel drive vehicles for six days to accomplish this critical work.

Sierra la Madera is important because of its location in the transition zone between the New World tropics and the northern temperate zone, and its significant species and habitat diversity from lowland tropical thornscrub to pine-oak forest on the highest peak at 7000' in elevation. The expedition team documented and photographed about 930 species of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, insects, land snails, and plants. Highlights were the amazing diversity of amphibians, reptiles, moths, and fungi. Major range extensions were made for tropical orchid bees, rare Sky Island moths, Great Plains skink, and the Apache fox squirrel. A milkweed and a ground orchid were the first records for the state of Sonora.

Documenting the species diversity in this important and relatively unstudied biological area will further ongoing research projects, conservation actions, and community education. All of the observations and photographs of animals and plants will soon be available to the general public, researchers, students, government agencies and landowners via the online MABA database at www.madrean.org. New collaborative research projects were initiated for the range's herpetofauna, the flora, terrestrial snails, and an environmental education project. A cooperative agreement was signed by Melanie Emerson, SIA Executive Director, and Ing. Guadalupe Rodriguez Valenzuela, Chancellor of UNISIERRA, to facilitate future collaborations.

Created in May 2004, Veolia Environment Foundation has become one of the leading private-sector foundations in France. It supports non-profit, community-oriented projects contributing to sustainable development, with a special focus on environmental conservation and biodiversity.

"Our Foundation is proud to participate with Sky Island Alliance and its partner organizations in Mexico and in the US, as well as with local landowners and volunteers, in the MABA Project. We look forward to its discovery of important new scientific information while being grounded in direct, community-supported action that will improve the health of both the natural and human environments in this area," said Thierry Vandevelde, Executive Director of Veolia Environment Foundation.

For additional details on this and future MABA field expeditions, please call Marc Trinks, MABA Project Coordinator, at (520) 624-7080 x 20.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are Sky Islands?
Weldon Heald coined the term "sky islands" in 1951 to denote mountain ranges that are isolated from each other by intervening valleys of grassland or desertscrub. Within the Sky Island region of northwestern Mexico and southwestern United States, valleys of the basin and range country act as barriers to the movement of certain woodland and forest species, somewhat like saltwater seas isolate plants and animals on oceanic islands - hence the common association with the archipelago phenomenon.

What is the Madrean Archipelago?
The 70,000-square-mile Sky Islands region of southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and northwestern Mexico between the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Mogollon Rim in Central Arizona is known as the Madrean Archipelago. It is globally important because of its rich diversity of species and habitats, its history as the birthplace of Aldo Leopold's great American conservation ethic, and as the northernmost range of such magnificent predators as the Mexican wolf and jaguar in North America. These mountain "islands," forested ranges separated by vast expanses of desert, grassland, and tropical thornscrub, are among the most diverse ecosystems in the world because of their great topographic complexity and unique location at the meeting point of several major tropical and temperate biological provinces.

Who is leading the Project?
Thomas R. Van Devender, Ph.D. recently joined SIA as the Project Manager — Science for the newly launched Madrean Archipelago Biodiversity Assessment. Van Devender was the Senior Research Scientist at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum from 1983 to 2009, where he conducted research on a broad range of natural history activities. He has published well over a hundred research publications including journal articles, book chapters, and six books on desert grassland, the cacti of Sonora, the Sonoran desert tortoise, and packrat middens and the paleoecology of the southwestern deserts. He is coeditor with Francisco Molina-Freaner on a book entitled Diversidad Biológica del Estado de Sonora to be published by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM) in Hermosillo, Sonora in 2009.

What is Sky Island Alliance? (learn more at: www.skyislandalliance.org)

Sky Island Alliance is a grassroots organization dedicated to the protection and restoration of the rich natural heritage of native species and habitats in the Sky Island region of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. We work with volunteers, scientists, land owners, public officials, and government agencies to establish protected areas, restore healthy landscapes, and promote public appreciation of the region's unique biological diversity. In the mid-1990s, Sky Island Alliance pioneered landscape-level conservation planning by integrating the science of conservation biology with grassroots organizing and on-the-ground restoration. With our partners, we put together the first comprehensive regional conservation plan for this magnificent landscape: the Sky Island Wildlands Network. By engaging a broad coalition of scientists, land managers, and citizens to create this science-based conservation blueprint and then implement it, we "connect the dots" between conservation planning and conservation action.

What is the Veolia Environment Foundation? (learn more at: www.fondation.veolia.com/en/)

The Veolia Environment Foundation, created in May 2004, is one of the leading private-sector foundations in France. It supports non-profit, community-oriented projects contributing to sustainable development, with special focus on outreach, workforce development and environmental conservation in France and internationally. Since 2004, the Veolia Environment Foundation has supported more than 700 projects.

For Further Information and Images Contact:
Sergio Avila, Northern Mexico Program
520.624.7080 x16 or sergio@skyislandalliance.org
Melanie Emerson, Executive Director (English)
520.624.7080 x12 or emerson@skyislandalliance.org

Contact Info: Sergio Avila, Northern Mexico Program
520.624.7080 x16 or sergio@skyislandalliance.org
Melanie Emerson, Executive Director (English)
520.624.7080 x12 or emerson@skyislandalliance.org

Website : Sky Island Alliance