Bryana Olmeda, UNM graduate student. The Brokeoff Mountains lie in southeastern New Mexico, west of the Guadalupe Mountains. This rugged mountain range represents several habitats within the Chihuahuan desert ecoregion. This comprehensive floristic study of the Brokeoff Mountains aims to collect voucher specimens, produce an annotated checklist, synthesize collections by defining vegetation types, and establish a conservation plan. This project unites botanical knowledge, collections-based research, and conservation practices to inform research and conservation that New Mexico greatly needs.

Upper Gila Watershed Alliance (UGWA). UGWA is seeking to amplify our existing Seedlings to Saplings program; a native tree and shrub nursery that provides robust native plants for restoration projects. Local Youth will be hired to care for and plant the saplings. We will also provide a free workshop instructing people how to germinate local oak and pine trees. These trees will have the genetic ability to withstand local climate stressors better than ones grown in another region.

New Mexico Highland University’s Sustainability and Conservation Committee, along with the Forestry and Conservation Clubs. These groups will develop a rain garden near Melody Dormitory (Las Vegas, NM). This rain garden will offer several ecosystem services for the campus landscape, including mitigating stormwater runoff, creating habitat for native plants and pollinators, providing a living laboratory for teaching ecohydrology, and demonstrating the use of native plants in green infrastructure projects.

Parikrama Sapkota, PhD candidate at UTEP. In the Chihuahuan Desert, shrub encroachment and biodiversity loss are prevalent due to factors like climate change and overgrazing. My study aims to explore the influence of soil microbial communities on the successful restoration of native grass species in this fragile ecosystem. Through greenhouse experiments, I am examining how these microbes affect plant-soil interactions across generations. The goal is to identify methods, such as diverse grass communities and microbial treatments, that can enhance plant resilience to drought.

McKinney Briske, Assistant Director of the Kingston Ghost Town Museum. The Kingston Ghost Town Museum is proposing to create an educational garden that will demonstrate the unique environment and keystone species of the area, and how the environment has changed over the past century. The vision is to create a native garden, a historical house garden and a water harvesting system. The grant supports development of a garden plan.

The biennial Natural History of the Gila Symposium (since 2006), free to the public, offers a variety of presentations (research, land management, conservation, education, policy) related to the “Gila Region” of southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. Although most presentations at previous symposia have used Powerpoint, the committee that is planning the 10th symposium (Feb. 28-Mar. 1 2024) wishes to offer a unique session and accompanying exhibit featuring photographs and posters by natural history photographers whose work can reveal aspects of natural phenomena that may not be apparent through traditional scientific studies. NPSNM is funding the cost of printing photographs for this exhibit.

Harpo Faust, UNM Herbarium Collections Manager. In 1954, the first published checklist of all the ferns and fern allies for the state of New Mexico was released. While recent state floras boast multiple updates, there is still much work to do when it comes to synthesizing updated nomenclature, updating distributions, as well as in uncovering undocumented populations. Harpo Faust, UMN Herbarium Collections Manager. This project aims to produce a publicly accessible annotated checklist grounded in refreshed field work, a thorough and recent collections synthesis and modern taxonomy.