PRESS RELEASE

Special Presentation: From Seeds to Stewardship: Collaborative Science for Sustaining Pinyon Woodlands, by Dr. Diana Macias.

Jill Kinmont Boothe School, George Lozito Conference Room

Monday, September 22, 7:00pm

The Bristlecone Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) will host a special presentation at its next general meeting on Monday, September 22, at 7:00pm in the George Lozito Conference Room at the Jill Kinmont Boothe School, 166 Grandview Drive in Bishop.

The speaker will be Dr. Diana Macias, a Postdoctoral Researcher at UC Berkeley. She will discuss, From Seeds to Stewardship: Collaborative Science for Sustaining Pinyon Woodlands. Please join us!

Dr. Macias will share the story of the development of the Pinyon Community Climate Action Network (PiCCA) which works to improve the resilience of pinyon-juniper woodlands through community collaboration. As the PiCCA website explains, “For generations, pinyon-juniper forests have sustained Indigenous peoples through traditional food harvests and provided local communities with timber and space for recreation. The woodlands are equally vital to wildlife, serving as critical habitat for species like the threatened Pinyon Jay and countless others that depend on this unique ecosystem.”

The presentation will describe what is being learned through PiCCA’s efforts, beginning with a broad survey of reproductive trends and needle traits across the range of the pinyon pine, showing how climate stress shapes both cone crops and the ways trees balance water use.

Next, Dr. Macias, will turn to a description of Wunupu, an Indigenous-led community science monitoring program that is documenting woodland health and resilience through hundreds of community observations in traditional gathering areas. “I’ll also share new genomic results from Colorado Pinyon that highlight the critical role of chemical defense in survival — and how the optimum defense from beetles appears to shift when trees are under drought stress,” she notes.

The presentation will end with a more sensory and collective experience opportunity: a pine nut taste test, where, as Dr. Macias explains, “Seeds from different regions invite us to think about how ecology, genetics, and culture all converge in something as simple, and profound, as flavor.”

The Bristlecone Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (CNPS), founded by Mary DeDecker and other native plant enthusiasts in 1982, is named for the most aged of the world’s trees. We are one of 36 statewide chapters working to protect and celebrate California’s native plants. We invite you to get to know us at our meetings, field trips, plant sales, and other fun events!

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