American Southwest Research Articles

Using iNaturalist presence data to produce suitability maps for Triatoma protracta, T. rubida and T. recurva in the American Southwest, Texas and northern Mexico, to identify potential transmission zones of Chagas disease.

There are 11 species of triatomines in the USA, with seven reported in the American Southwest. These species are capable of transmitting Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas disease, but are generally sylvatic and rarely infect humans in the USA. iNaturalist is one of the most popular citizen science data portals, where users record encounters with any individual organism. As of November 2023, iNaturalist reported 722 confirmed triatomine observations in the American Southwest. Maximum entropy ecological niche modelling and bioclimatic environmental variables were used to predict zones of highest human-triatomine interaction. Models fit well for Triatoma protracta (0.85), T. rubida (0.94), and T. recurva (0.96). Precipitation in the warmest quarter was most predictive of T. protracta presence, while precipitation in the driest quarter was most predictive of T. rubida and T. recurva. Locations identified in the American Southwest with highest potential for human-triatomine interaction, and potential T. cruzi transmission, were coastal California, the Sierra Nevada foothills, southern Arizona and border areas of northern Mexico. Study findings can be used for targeted surveillance efforts to address the paucity of contemporary information regarding triatomine species diversity and geographical and ecological associations in the American Southwest.

A rapid dispersal of maize from the Great Plains to northeastern North America

Northern Flint maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) is a distinct landrace that was common throughout early historical northeastern North America. It is likely represented archaeologically as Eastern 8-row maize, the dominant form there after 1200 CE. Genetic analyses indicate that Northern Flint is most likely derived from maize in the American Southwest. Evidence for maize in the form of phytoliths and starch recovered from directly radiocarbon dated cooking residues occurs in the Northeast by 290 BCE. Until recently there has been no substantiated evidence for maize of similar or older age in the Great Plains, through which maize is likely to have dispersed from the Southwest. A recent report of early microbotanical evidence for maize from the central Plains allows Bayesian modeling of radiocarbon dates to estimate the amount of time that elapsed before maize spread from the Plains to the Northeast. Results indicate only a short amount of time elapsed, from a few to less than 170 years.

The Logic of Zombies: An Experiential Account of Schizophrenia

Several months into a seven-month episode of psychosis, I stood in Utah before the undulating rock of a canyon bathed in muted colors of peach, red, and rust. I could see that the canyon was beautiful. And I sighed, knowing I would soon feel deep satisfaction and contentment while contemplating nature’s beauty. My heart rose in anticipation, but instead, I felt nothing, not one thing at all. I couldn’t have cared less. And I was perplexed. I registered that the colors of the canyon were exquisitely melded into one another. “What was happening,” I thought? I saw that the rock was twisted and carved by the forces of gravity and water. However, I had absolutely no emotional reaction to the marvel of the American Southwest. The deep cobalt-blue sky never said a word to me that day. In fact, wonder fled far away. The loneliness of the scene, just a rock wall and myself bordering a deep ravine that ran far away into the empty desert, stirred no melancholy in my heart.

One hundred years of piñon nuts, a largely forgotten wild food crop from the American Southwest (1850–1950)

This is the first paper to intensively examine the history of piñon nuts, the seeds of the piñon pine (Pinus edulis), which Indigenous Americans have harvested in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest for millennia. The history of the piñon nut industry is reconstructed from its inception in the mid-19th century in the New Mexico Territory to its heyday in the early 20th century until consumption began to decline in the mid-20th century. Additionally, this paper provides some suggestions for reviving this iconic Southwestern American food. The commercial harvest of piñon nuts primarily involved Native and Mexican Americans. While the economic benefits of piñon nut harvesting were significant, the work was often dangerous, with reports of deaths due to exposure, accidents, and violence. Piñon nut production varied yearly due to the trees’ masting behavior, where trees produce large seed crops intermittently. Although there was considerable interest in cultivation during the early 20th century, slow growth and delayed nut-bearing limited cultivation efforts. Piñon nuts were popular throughout the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, gaining popularity, especially among immigrant communities in New York. In 1918, Fannie Spitz patented a piñon nut-shelling machine, significantly improving processing efficiency and impacting the industry by enabling quicker and more effective removal of kernels. Shelled piñon nuts were now sold for consumption out of hand and also for use in candy production. Farmers experimented with feeding hogs and chickens piñon nuts. However, this practice did not become widespread due to the availability of cheaper corn. Piñon wood was also valued for its use as firewood and in mining as props, though it had limited application as lumber for railroad ties. At the same time, smaller piñon trees gained popularity as Christmas trees. Piñon resin was chewed and also used medicinally in salves. By the mid-20th century, piñon nuts lost popularity to peanuts (Arachis hypogaea), which were marketed more aggressively and produced in higher quantities at lower prices. The piñon industry has struggled with crop variability, low supply, and high prices. Still, it might be revived with improved marketing, working cooperatively and through the construction of a strategic reserve to ensure a steady supply of piñon nuts every year, through both good and bad harvests.

Comparison of radiation exposure and fluoroscopy time between minimally invasive common bile duct exploration and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography for choledocholithiasis

ImportanceRadiation exposure causes dose-dependent deleterious effects and efforts should be made to decrease patient exposure to ionizing radiation. Patients with choledocholithiasis are commonly exposed to ionizing radiation as fluoroscopy-guided interventions including minimally invasive common bile duct exploration (MICBDE) and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) are the preferred treatment modalities for common bile duct (CBD) stone clearance. However, radiation exposure and fluoroscopy times have not been compared between these two treatment modalities. ObjectiveTo compare fluoroscopy time (FT) and radiation exposure (RE) between MICBDE and ERCP in patients with choledocholithiasis. DesignThis is a retrospective analysis of a prospectively maintained database of a single surgeon performing MICBDE at an academic referral center between May 2021 and June 2023 compared to a retrospective analysis of all ERCPs performed between January 2020 and February 2021. Patient demographics, procedural details, fluoroscopic details, and post operative outcomes were compared between the MICBDE and ERCP. SettingSingle institution academic referral center located in the American Southwest. Participants109 patients with choledocholithiasis were divided into 2 groups. 53 patients (48.62%) underwent ERCP, and 56 patients (51.38%) underwent MICBDE. Inclusion criteria were; all patients presenting with choledocholithiasis and subsequently underwent ERCP or MICBDE. Patients who underwent ERCP for non-choledocholithiasis related reasons were excluded. Main outcomes and measuresPrimary outcomes include FT measured in minutes and RE measured in milligray (mGy). Secondary outcomes were successful clearance of the common bile duct, complications, procedural time, and reinterventions. ResultsA significant difference (P<.001) between fluoroscopy times was identified between ERCP (3.1mins) and MICBDE (1.54mins). Median RE doses between the ERCP group (38 mGy) and the MICBDE group (38.41 mGy) were not statistically different (p=0.88). Technical success of CBD clearance was similar in both groups (91% in MICBDE group vs 93% in ERCP group; p=0.711). Conclusion and RelevanceAdvantages of MICBDE over ERCP include; treatment of choledocholithiasis at the time of cholecystectomy, which reduces the risk of additional anesthesia episodes and the introduces the potential for shorter hospital length of stay. This study shows that MICDBE has lower FT compared to ERCP and comparable RE. Given the advantages of MICBDE, it should be strongly considered at the time of laparoscopic cholecystectomy.

Through and Outside the Law: The Violent Roots of Law and Order in the American Southwest

Through and Outside the Law: The Violent Roots of Law and Order in the American Southwest

Coahuilasaurus lipani, a New Kritosaurin Hadrosaurid from the Upper Campanian Cerro Del Pueblo Formation, Northern Mexico

The Late Cretaceous of Western North America (Laramidia) supported a diverse dinosaur fauna, with duckbilled dinosaurs (Hadrosauridae) being among the most speciose and abundant members of this assemblage. Historically, collecting and preservational biases have meant that dinosaurs from Mexico and the American Southwest are poorly known compared to those of the northern Great Plains. However, evidence increasingly suggests that distinct species and clades inhabited southern Laramidia. Here, a new kritosaurin hadrosaurid, represented by the anterior part of a skull, is reported from the late Campanian of the Cerro del Pueblo Formation, ~72.5 Ma, in Coahuila, Mexico. The Cerro del Pueblo Formation kritosaur was originally considered to represent the same species as a saurolophine from the Olmos Formation of Sabinas, but the Sabinas hadrosaur is now considered a distinct taxon. More recently, the Cerro del Pueblo Formation kritosaur has been referred to Kritosaurus navajovius. We show it represents a new species related to Gryposaurus. The new species is distinguished by its large size, the shape of the premaxillary nasal process, the strongly downturned dentary, and massive denticles on the premaxilla’s palatal surface, supporting recognition of a new taxon, Coahuilasaurus lipani. The dinosaur assemblage of the Cerro del Pueblo Formation shows higher diversity than the contemporaneous fauna of the Horseshoe Canyon Formation in Alberta. Furthermore, Kritosaurini, Lambeosaurini, and Parasaurolophini all persist into the latest Campanian in southern Laramidia after disappearing from northern Laramidia. These patterns suggest declining herbivore diversity seen at high latitudes may be a local, rather than global phenomenon, perhaps driven by cooling at high latitudes in the Late Campanian and Maastrichtian.

Putting Back Together

Composed of diptych photographs stitched together in a poetic travelogue through nuclear-infused (Indigenous) lands, annie ross's Pots and Other Living Beings reenvisions social and ecological relations, value structures, and knowledge frameworks in its encounter with violated landscapes of the American Southwest. In its embrace of the blighted remainders of nuclear testing, industry, and consumerism, Pots and Other Living Beings is not a typical “environmental” text. Like ross's weaving and visual installations, this work is alive to relations of reciprocity and kinship with more-than-human worlds in what one could best describe as a spiritual engagement with the abandoned, unremarked leavings of nuclearization, industrial capitalism, and waste cultures.

Movement patterns of a small-bodied minnow suggest nomadism in a fragmented, desert river

BackgroundUnfettered movement among habitats is crucial for fish to access patchily distributed resources and complete their life cycle, but many riverscapes in the American Southwest are fragmented by dams and dewatering. The endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow (Hybognathus amarus, RGSM) persists in a fragmented remnant of its former range (ca. 5%), and its movement ecology is understudied.MethodsWe tracked movements of hatchery-reared RGSM, tagged with passive integrated transponder tags, using stationary and mobile antennas from 2019 to 2022. We quantified probability of movement and total distance moved by RGSM released above and below a dam. We then assessed how well two prevailing riverine movement theories (i.e., restricted movement paradigm [RMP] and colonization cycle hypothesis [CCH]) explained RGSM movement patterns.ResultsWe detected 36.8% of released RGSM (n = 37,215) making at least one movement. Movements were leptokurtic and substantially greater than expected based on the RMP for both stationary (1.7–5.9 m) and mobile (30.3–77.8 m) individuals. On average, RGSM were detected at large for 75 days and moved a total of 12.2 rkm within a year. The maximum total distance moved by RGSM was 103 rkm. Similarly, we observed a multimodal distribution of detected range sizes with a mean detected range of 2.4 rkm and a maximum detected range of 78.2 rkm. We found little support for an upstream movement bias, as expected under the CCH, and most movements (74%) were directed downstream.ConclusionsOur data suggest RGSM are highly mobile, with the ability to make long-distance movements. Neither movement theory adequately described movement patterns of RGSM; instead, our findings support a nomadic movement pattern and an apparent drift paradox matching recent studies of other pelagic-broadcast spawning minnows where populations persist upstream despite experiencing downstream drift as larvae. Resolution of the drift paradox may be achieved through further, targeted studies into different aspects of the species’ life history. Quantification of RGSM movement provides crucial insights into the species’ movement ecology and may help define the appropriate scale of recovery efforts.

Bristlecone Pine Maximum Latewood Density as a Superior Proxy for Millennium‐Length Temperature Reconstructions

AbstractBristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) (PILO) trees exhibit exceptional longevity. Their tree‐ring width (TRW) series offer valuable insights into climatic variability. Maximum latewood density (MXD) typically correlates better with temperature variations than TRW, yet PILO MXD records are non‐existent due to methodological challenges related to tree‐ring structure. Here, we used an X‐ray Computed Tomography (X‐ray CT) toolchain on 51 PILO cores from the California White Mountains to build a chronology that correlates significantly (r = 0.66, p &lt; 0.01) with warm‐season (March‐September) temperature over a large spatial extent. This led to the first X‐ray CT‐based temperature reconstruction (1625–2005 CE). Good reconstruction skill (RE = 0.51, CE = 0.32) shows that extending MXD records across the full length of the PILO archive could yield a robust warm‐season temperature proxy for the American Southwest over millennia. This breakthrough opens avenues for measuring MXD in other challenging conifers, increasing our understanding of past climate further, particularly in lower latitudes.

Leveraging historical hospitality in the national parks: Fred Harvey, Mary Colter, and the heritage of the American Southwest

ABSTRACT This conceptual paper examines the Fred Harvey Company, a key entity that helped develop tourism at Southwestern national parks, in particular Grand Canyon National Park and Petrified Forest National Park. The article describes some of the influences of this organization on the image of tourism in the Southwest, from the thematic design of spaces to the commercializing of Native American cultural heritage. After examining these impacts, the contemporary state of interpretation in these national parks is highlighted. Drawing on not only the natural and cultural resources of the region, organizations such as the National Park Service or Xanterra Travel Collection employ the historical hospitality foundations of the sites to create a multi-layered image of the national park as well as connect to tourist identities.

Visible-Light Spectroscopy and Rock Magnetic Analyses of Iron Oxides in Mixed-Mineral Assemblages

Iron oxide assemblages are central to many pursuits, ranging from Mars exploration to environmental remediation. Oxides and oxyhydroxides of iron both carry the special properties of color and magnetism. In this paper, we use visible-light spectroscopy and rock magnetic data collected at varying temperatures (~77–973 K) to analyze the concentrations and identities of iron oxides found in natural hematite-dominated samples that were obtained from a scientific drill core of Late Triassic red beds in the American Southwest. Our results suggest that hematite colorization of Earth materials varies from red to blue/purple as crystal size increases. Second-derivative analysis of the collected visible-light spectra allows this variation to be measured through the characteristic wavelength band position. Magnetic coercivity data indicate “hardness” differences that also may suggest smaller grain sizes are associated with redder colors. Yellowish maghemite and goethite have overlapping characteristic wavelength band positions that make it challenging to distinguish their contributions to mixed assemblages from visible-light data alone. Remanent magnetizations acquired at ~77 K and room temperature suggest the presence of hematite and a low-coercivity phase that may be maghemite and/or oxidized magnetite. However, we interpret this phase as maghemite in order to explain the changes in iron oxide concentrations indicated by visible-light intensities near ~425 nm and because the thermal demagnetization data suggest that goethite is absent from the samples. Future research that increases the resolution of hematite, maghemite, and goethite detection in experimental and natural samples will provide opportunities to refine the study of past climates and constrain soil iron availability under future changes in global moisture and temperature. Multimethod datasets improve understanding of environmental conditions that cause iron oxides assemblages to shift in phase dominance, grain size, and crystallinity.

Stable Isotope Analysis of La Playa and Broader Impacts

Knowledge of the Early Agricultural period (4100 to 1900 BP) has been saturated with data from sites spanning Northwestern Mexico and the American Southwest. As our understanding of the role of maize in Early Agricultural populations has grown, our understanding of the behavioral changes has also been affected. As a result, the methodologies of this study requires more than site level analyses, and integration into other crucial sites of the Early Agricultural period such as La Playa, Cerro Juanaqueña, and Casas Grandes. To understand the transition from mixed subsistence to the reliance on maize, multiple variables must be considered: ecology, stable isotope analysis, dietary variability, and behavioral changes. This article seeks to highlight the site of La Playa, in Northern Sonora, Mexico by focusing on the dependence on maize with δ13Ccollagen and δ13Capatite isotopes to evaluate the reduction of variability throughout the Early Agricultural period.

Rainfall intensification amplifies exposure of American Southwest to conditions that trigger postfire debris flows

Short-duration, high-intensity rainfall can initiate deadly and destructive debris flows after wildfire. Methods to estimate the conditions that can trigger debris flows exist and guidance to determine how often those thresholds will be exceeded under the present climate are available. However, the limited spatiotemporal resolution of climate models has hampered efforts to characterize how rainfall intensification driven by global warming may affect debris-flow hazards. We use novel, dynamically downscaled (3.75-km), convection-permitting simulations of short-duration (15-min) rainfall to evaluate threshold exceedance for late 21st-century climate scenarios in the American Southwest. We observe significant increases in the frequency and magnitude of exceedances for regions dominated by cool- and warm-season rainfall. We also observe an increased frequency of exceedance in regions where postfire debris flows have not been documented, and communities are unaccustomed to the hazard. Our findings can inform planning efforts to increase resiliency to debris flows under a changing climate.

The Encke comet impact/airburst and the Younger Dryas Boundary: Testing the impossible hypothesis (YDIH)

Many have tagged the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH), a supposition, lacking convincing evidence in support. The core of criticism lies squarely on uniformitarianism, that is, uniform processes moving uniformly with no room for catastrophic events, specifically cosmic catastrophic forces. Beyond philosophically based aversion to the YDIH, specific criticism comes from megafauna and archaeologic corners, related to the near coeval disappearance of specific Late Pleistocene species on the one hand, and relation to disruption and temporary disappearance of the Clovis people et al. on the other. The Younger Dryas geologic paradigm, originally in place with meltwater release into the Atlantic in tow, attention slowly drifted to explanation of an innocuous looking, thin (~1-3 cm), black sediment bed found in lacustrine and fluvial deposits of the American southwest, and other intercontinental places. Thus, with thin dark beds of Gubbio in mind, the quest to explain black mat (BM) beds took on a cosmic aspect, one with growing, supporting evidence on several continents. The impossible hypothesis, now the probable explanation of the Younger Dryas climatic reversal, is at center stage, set at 12.8 ka, with a burgeoning corpus of evidence its cornerstone.

‘You feel it in your bones’: Mobility, animacy, and the everyday violence of incarceration in the American southwest

In this article, I explore how mobility, animacy, and ontology intertwine to shape everyday violence in the carceral American Southwest. I draw on ethnographic research that I conducted between 2016 and 2017 at the Desert Echo Facility, a state prison that holds individuals from minimum to high-security levels. Some incarcerated people feel supposedly inanimate objects, such as walls, rocks, paper, and floors moving, while others feel vibrations moving across the compound. For some of the incarcerated, physical movement signifies aliveness – meaning that incarceration forces them to question if they are less alive than the “inanimate” materials that confine them. Others understand these movements as the direct violence of the state that purposefully disrupts how they construct relations. In this context, incarcerated peoples’ alive status is no longer a given and their relations no longer assumed to be inherent and ongoing, but rather, processes to be negotiated within criminal punishment systems. I focus on what these movements mean to incarcerated people, and how they situate these movements within differing ontologies to make visible the often-hidden violence of incarceration in the United States.

Uranium-series and strontium isotope systematics in soil carbonates from dryland Critical Zones: Implications for soil inorganic carbon storage and transformation

Soil carbonates are dominantly present in dryland Critical Zone (CZ) and their formation could lead to important long-term carbon sequestration in arid to semiarid soils if the Ca ions were derived from silicate weathering or other non-carbonate sources. In managed CZ systems such as agricultural areas converted from natural drylands, irrigation has profound effects on the dryland CZ inorganic carbon storage, especially by modifying dissolution and precipitation dynamics of soil carbonates via controls of irrigation intensity and water chemistry, soil properties, and hydrological flow paths. These processes could lead to transformation of inorganic carbon in soils and groundwater aquifers underneath drylands. One key knowledge gap in studying soil carbonates from managed dryland CZ systems is to detect the formation of soil carbonates under irrigated conditions and distinguish them effectively from soil carbonates formed under natural conditions.Here, we explore the potential of using U-series and strontium isotopes to investigate the formation timescales and conditions of soil carbonates in both natural and managed dryland CZ in Chihuahua Desert of American Southwest. We obtained new U-series and Sr isotope ratios from mature stage V natural soil carbonates in the Jornada Basin of southern New Mexico and compared to previously published U-series and Sr isotope results for younger Jornada soil carbonates as well as irrigation impacted soil carbonates from the Rio Grande floodplains in west Texas. Specifically, we applied the U-series dating method (238U-234U-230Th) to estimate the timescales of soil carbonate formation under both natural climatic conditions and impacts of modern agriculture irrigation. In addition, we showed that the initial (234U/238U) activity ratios recorded in these soil carbonates reflect the systematic changes of soil infiltration rates in both natural and managed dryland CZ. We also utilized Sr isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr) in soil carbonates, dust, and irrigation water to trace the Ca sources in soil carbonates from natural and managed dryland CZ. Soil carbonates from both settings were characterized by slightly radiogenic 87Sr/86Sr ratios, consistent with their potential of long-term carbon storage in drylands.U-series and Sr isotope systematics characterize important differences in soil carbonates from natural and managed dryland CZ with respect to their Ca sources, timescales of carbonate formation and transformation, and availability of soil moisture. Soil carbonates formed, accumulated, and transformed in natural drylands with long time scales but under irrigated arid agricultural areas its formation is significantly modified by irrigation and other agriculture practices, with implications for long- and short-term inorganic carbon sequestration in both systems of drylands.

Valuing Water in a Changing World

This piece highlights the historic hydrological development of the American Southwest by highlighting the rapid growth of water infrastructure, present and future struggles with drought and climate change, and proactive adaptation in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Preliminary Insights from Las Chachalacas (SON S:8:004): A Pleistocene-Holocene Occupation Record from Quiriego, Sonora, Mexico

This article summarizes recent work at the site of Las Chachalacas, located in the Municipio of Quiriego, southern Sonora. Set within the western foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental, Las Chachalacas was adjacent to an arroyo that periodically became impounded, producing a marsh like environment. Stratigraphic associations and a minimal number of 14C dates suggest the site was regularly utilized from the terminal Pleistocene through the Early Agricultural period. Results contribute to several enduring debates in the North American Southwest regarding Pleistocene landscape use, demographic continuity through the Holocene Climatic Optimum (7500–5000 cal BP), the sequence of mobility and subsistence changes in the Archaic/Early Agricultural periods, and the identities of the earliest farmers indexed by material culture such as projectile points.

The Mogollon Highlands Ecoregion of the American Southwest: A Neglected Center of Ecological Diversity

The Mogollon Highlands Ecoregion of the American Southwest: A Neglected Center of Ecological Diversity