Long Term Ecological Research Program
We often have hectic daily schedules that make it feel like life is just blazing by. It isn’t until we turn our attention to the mountains or take a hike in a forest that we get a sense of timelessness. The plants holding stead fast to their home in the soil, and nature always coming back and forth in cycles that repeat every year for eons. From the point of view of our daily lives, our environment appears as constant as a watch that has stopped ticking. Only this stability is an illusion. The environment, especially here in the Chihuahuan Desert, is extremely variable, changing quite dramatically over the course of years.

Chihuahuan Desert grasslands after 2014 monsoon season.