The Southwest’s Famous Cacti Are in Trouble

One of the Southwest’s most acquainted crops could also be in serious trouble. The towering, multi-armed saguaro cactus, which is discovered solely within the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, California, and elements of Mexico, has confronted growing instability as local weather change alters its pure habitat by way of droughts and wildfires. The cacti can dwell properly over a century and are culturally essential to the tribal nations native to the Sonoran, in addition to essential to the bigger ecosystem of the desert.

“We’re trying to understand how changes in temperature and precipitation in the future might affect the reproductive potential of saguaros, everything from how old they are when they start reproducing to how many flowers do they produce,” Don Swann, a biologist at Saguaro National Park, told PBS.