“We just have a decade or two given the rapid pace of climate and land-use change,” said Brent Mishler, a UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology and director of the University and Jepson Herbaria. “Our opportunities, even 10 years down the line, are way more limited compared to what they are now. What we are going to save, we are going to save quickly. We don’t have forever to leisurely conserve California.”
Graduate student Matthew Kling, Mishler and their UC Berkeley colleagues have created a computer model to prioritize the plants and growing areas needing preservation, linking this for the first time with the areas’ suitability for preservation.