Team Member: Aaryn Olsson

I am a desert rat. I have been intimate with glochids and retrorsely barbed spines many more times than I can remember. I know the thrill of seeing the broken tip of an embedded agave thorn surface weeks after it first entered my skin. I can weave through a patch of chainfruit cholla at the same pace that most people walk along a sidewalk. My contortions of navigating a cluster of jumping cholla could be used to train pole vaulters and high jumpers. I have broken icicles off saguaros and gathered snow from prickly pears to make desert snowballs. I have waited for Gila Monsters to cross my path and given sidewinders a wide berth. I listen to thunder and then I yell back. I have chewed on Ephedra and drunk from tinajas. I kissed a Canyon tree frog and it didn't turn into a prince (or a princess). I part the slime in canyon pools. I picked up a Colorado River toad and didn't get warts. My favorite smell is creosote right before it rains. I run through puddles and I always root for desert rain. I love flash floods and eat wild greens. I have a love-hate relationship with Kearney and Peebles. So will you. Yes, I have hugged a saguaro.

I grew up in Tucson, AZ, and received degrees from the University of Arizona, the last being a PhD in Arid Lands Resource Sciences. I started work at the NAU Lab of Landscape Ecology and Conservation Biology in June, 2010. I am a desert ecologist and remote sensing specialist with a strong interest in invasive species and the "grass-fire cycle". The grass-fire cycle, as termed by Carla D'Antonio and Peter Vitousek (1992), describes a positive feedback between invasive grasses in arid ecosystems that have historically experienced infrequent fires or no fires at all. Arid ecosystems are typically characterized by little to no fine fuel connectivity and are resistant to fire. Invasive grasses fill the interstitial spaces and allow a fire cycle that destroys natives and promotes further invasion by grasses. This is happening in my own backyard.

I now live in Flagstaff with my wife and son. We are expecting #2 in March and as a result I will not be in the field for the duration. When the day comes, I hope you will drink a Tecate for our little one.