The purpose of this research project is to document vegetation change in the arid lands of the southwestern United States. The project compiles data on past and present plant distributions and combines it with data on past, present, and future climates in order to predict future plant distributions. This site provides a brief background of the project and links to sites supporting its four major research efforts: a macrobotanical digital library, digitized range maps for modern plants of the arid southwest, a fossil packrat midden database, and modern climates of North America. Also included is background information on late Pleistocene and Holocene vegetation change and a link to paleoecological and historical vegetation studies at the Colorado Plateau field station.
