Lesley DeFalco
Biography
RESEARCH INTERESTS
- Restoration of Aridlands
- Conservation biology
- Desert Community Ecology
- Ecological monitoring
- Effects of Anthropogenic Disturbance
- Evaluation of management
- Fire ecology
- Global climate change
- Invasive species ecology
- Physiological plant ecology
- Plant ecology
- Species interactions
- Threatened and endangered species
EDUCATION
PhD, Ecology, Evolution & Conservation Biology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 2003
MS, Botany, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 1995
BS, Biological Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 1989
COMMITTEES
- Botanical Society of America
- California Native Plant Society (Mojave Chapter)
- Ecological Society of America
- Nevada Native Plant Society
- Society for Ecological Restoration (Southwest Chapter)
Science and Products
WERC Fire Science
WERC scientists are defining the past, present, and future of wildfires for wildlife and human communities. Explore this webpage to learn about specific, ongoing projects across California and parts of Nevada.
Process-based Approaches for Ecological Restoration of Degraded Drylands
Surface disturbances ranging from military training, recreation, energy exploration and development, and wildfires impact a large majority of federal lands in the western US, but the ecological and economic impacts are poorly understood. Explore this webpage to learn how Dr. Lesley DeFalco and her research team are currently evaluating and refining conventional approaches for post-fire...
Native Plant Materials for Ecological Restoration of Degraded Drylands
There is a growing consensus among resource managers to use native plant materials for ecological restoration of degraded drylands. Some plant species may be suitable for re-introduction across broad environmental gradients. Other species may fail under narrower conditions, or their re-introduction may have genetic consequences for local ecotypes, particularly when adapting to future climate...
Conservation of Rare, Sensitive, and At-risk Desert Plant Species
The Mojave Desert is among the hottest and driest of the North American drylands, but in spite of these extreme conditions, and in part because of them, a diverse flora exists. This diversity of rare, endemic, and endangered species is threatened by the complex interaction between fluctuating climate and human-mediated disturbances. USGS studies have identified rare species “hotspots” for...
Southwest Energy Development and Drought (SWEDD)
Deserts of the southwestern US are replete with oil and gas deposits as well as sites for solar, wind, and geothermal energy production. In the past, many of these resources have been too expensive to develop, but increased demand and new technologies have led to an increase in exploration and development. However, desert ecosystems generally have low resilience to disturbance. More frequent,...
Henderson Field Station
The Henderson Field Station supports research scientists leading projects in desert ecosystem restoration, genetics of iconic trees of the Mojave Desert, predator-prey studies on protected lands, and more. Select the next tab for a comprehensive summary of studies at this site.
Principal components of climate variation in the Desert Southwest for the time periods 1980-2010, 2040-2070 (RCP8.5) and (RCP4.5) - data release
Five principal components are used to represent the climate variation in an original set of 12 climate variables reflecting precipitation and temperature gradients. The dataset provides coverage for four regions (the Sonoran Desert, Mojave Desert, Colorado Plateau, and Southern Great Basin) and two time periods: current climate (defined as the 1980-2010 normal period) and future climate (...
Climate Distance Mapper - web application
Climate Distance Mapper is a spatial decision-support tool designed to help land managers match seed sources with restoration sites. Plant populations are commonly adapted to local climate gradients and frequently exhibit a home-site advantage. For this reason, climate information may serve as a proxy for local adaptation in restoration designs. Climate Distance Mapper allows users to rank the...
Priority species lists to restore desert tortoise and pollinator habitats in Mojave Desert shrublands
Mojave Desert shrublands are home to unique plants and wildlife and are experiencing rapid habitat change due to unprecedented large-scale disturbances; yet, established practices to effectively restore disturbed landscapes are not well developed. A priority species list of native plant taxa was developed to guide seed collectors, commercial...
Esque, Todd C.; DeFalco, Lesley A.; Tyree, Gayle Loren; Drake, K. Kristina; Nussear, Kenneth E.; Wilson, Joseph S Harnessing landscape genomics to identify future climate resilient genotypes in a desert annual
Local adaptation features critically in shaping species responses to changing environments, complicating efforts to revegetate degraded areas. Rapid climate change poses an additional challenge that could reduce fitness of even locally sourced seeds in restoration. Predictive restoration strategies that apply seeds with favourable adaptations to...
Shryock, Daniel F.; Washburn, Loraine K; DeFalco, Lesley A.; Esque, Todd C. Spatial decision‐support tools to guide restoration and seed‐sourcing in the Desert Southwest
Altered disturbance regimes and shifting climates have increased the need for large‐scale restoration treatments across the western United States. Seed‐sourcing remains a considerable challenge for revegetation efforts, particularly on public lands where policy favors the use of native, locally sourced plant material to avoid maladaptation. An...
Shryock, Daniel F.; DeFalco, Lesley A.; Esque, Todd C. Drawing a line in the sand: Effectiveness of off-highway vehicle management in California's Sonoran desert
Public land policies manage multiple uses while striving to protect vulnerable plant and wildlife habitats from degradation; yet the effectiveness of such policies are infrequently evaluated, particularly for remote landscapes that are difficult to monitor. We assessed the use and impacts of recreational vehicles on Mojave Desert washes (...
Custer, Nathan; Defalco, Lesley A.; Nussear, Kenneth E.; Esque, Todd C. The role of salinity tolerance and competition in the distribution of an endangered desert salt marsh endemic
Rare plants are often associated with distinctive soil types, and understanding why endemic species occur in unique environments is fundamental for their management. At Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in southern Nevada, USA, we evaluated whether the limited distribution of endangered Amargosa niterwort (Nitrophila mohavensis) is explained by...
DeFalco, Lesley; Scoles, Sara; Beamguard, Emily R. Landscape genetic approaches to guide native plant restoration in the Mojave Desert
Restoring dryland ecosystems is a global challenge due to synergistic drivers of disturbance coupled with unpredictable environmental conditions. Dryland plant species have evolved complex life-history strategies to cope with fluctuating resources and climatic extremes. Although rarely quantified, local adaptation is likely widespread among these...
Shryock, Daniel F.; Havrilla, Caroline A.; DeFalco, Lesley; Esque, Todd C.; Custer, Nathan; Wood, Troy E. Yucca brevifolia fruit production, predispersal seed predation, and fruit removal by rodents during two years of contrasting reproduction
PREMISE OF THE STUDY: The distribution of Yucca brevifolia, a keystone species of the Mojave Desert, may contract with climate change, yet reproduction and dispersal are poorly understood. We tracked reproduction, seed predation, and fruit dispersal for two years and discuss whether Y. brevifolia is a masting species....
Borchert, Mark I.; DeFalco, Lesley Landscape genomics of Sphaeralcea ambigua in the Mojave Desert: a multivariate, spatially-explicit approach to guide ecological restoration
Local adaptation influences plant species’ responses to climate change and their performance in ecological restoration. Fine-scale physiological or phenological adaptations that direct demographic processes may drive intraspecific variability when baseline environmental conditions change. Landscape genomics characterize adaptive...
Shryock, Daniel F.; Havrilla, Caroline A.; DeFalco, Lesley; Esque, Todd C.; Custer, Nathan; Wood, Troy E. Desert tortoise use of burned habitat in the Eastern Mojave desert
Wildfires burned 24,254 ha of critical habitat designated for the recovery of the threatened Mojave desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) in southern Nevada during 2005. The proliferation of non-native annual grasses has increased wildfire frequency and extent in recent decades and continues to accelerate the conversion of tortoise habitat...
Drake, K. Kristina; Esque, Todd C.; Nussear, Kenneth E.; DeFalco, Lesley; Scoles, Sara; Modlin, Andrew T.; Medica, Philip A. Direct and indirect effects of environmental variability on growth and survivorship of pre-reproductive Joshua trees, Yucca brevifolia Engelm (Agavaceae)
• Premise of study: Accurate demographic information about long-lived plant species is important for understanding responses to large-scale disturbances, including climate change. It is challenging to obtain these data from desert perennial plants because seedling establishment is exceptionally rare, and estimates of survival are...
Esque, Todd C.; Medica, Phil A.; Shryock, Daniel F.; Defalco, Lesley A.; Webb, Robert H.; Hunter, Richard B. Contrasting long-term survival of two outplanted Mojave Desert perennials for post-fire revegetation
Post-fire recovery of arid shrublands is typically slow, and planting greenhouse-raised seedlings may be a means of jump-starting this process. Recovery can be further accelerated by understanding the factors controlling post-planting survival. In fall 2007 and 2009, we outplanted seedlings of two contrasting native evergreen shrubs—fast-...
Scoles-Sciulla, Sara J.; Defalco, Lesley A.; Esque, Todd C. Life-history traits predict perennial species response to fire in a desert ecosystem
The Mojave Desert of North America has become fire-prone in recent decades due to invasive annual grasses that fuel wildfires following years of high rainfall. Perennial species are poorly adapted to fire in this system, and post-fire shifts in species composition have been substantial but variable across community types. To generalize across a...
Shryock, Daniel F.; DeFalco, Lesley A.; Esque, Todd C.