Manzanitas & their Animals: Keys to Evolution | Speaker: Dr. Tom Parker

The Friends of San Pedro Valley Park are pleased to welcome back Dr. Tom Parker, Professor of Biology, Emeritus, from San Francisco State University. On a Zoom webinar, he will present his lecture entitled Manzanitas and their animals – keys to evolution. Arctostaphylos (manzanitas) has over a hundred different taxa. In contrast to the other members of the Ericaceous subfamily Arbutoideae, Arctostaphylos has evolved dormant seed, seed banks that persist decades in the soil, and obligate seeding species (species killed by fire), among other traits. Animals are likely one of the stimuli to that diversification. This talk will focus on that hypothesis, starting with surveying animals at different stages of manzanita’ s life history. Tom Parker will focus on some of his current research that establishes seed banks resulting from rodent caching of fruit, and the implications of that for taxa living in arid, canopy fire regions. Because soil seed banks are so critical to the success of this genus, he developed a model of seed bank dynamics, and the role rodents play in managing them. Consequently, there are not only evolutionary implications, but insights for those managing chaparral with Arctostaphylos species.