Bad at Goodbyes

Rough Transcript

Intro 00:05

Welcome to Bad at Goodbyes.

On today’s show we consider the Crau Plain Grasshopper.

Species Information 02:05

The Crau Plain Grasshopper is a critically endangered insect native to Western Europe, to the south of France, in the Provence region, in the Bouches-du-Rhone department, specifically found in the dry grasslands of the Crau Plain. Its scientific name is Prionotropis rhodanica, and it was first described in 1923.

 

Description

The Crau Plain Grasshopper is a large grasshopper with a stout body of roughly an inch and a half in length. They have a hard textured exoskeleton, that is a camouflaging blend of earth tones: browns, grays, and greens, often with darker markings and spots that mimic the texture and color of stones typical of their habitat.

 

The Crau Plain Grasshopper has a large, rounded head, with two compound eyes and two filiform antennae. Filiform means thread-like, so the grasshoppers’ antennae are long, slender, cylindrical, tapering slightly from base to tip. They are a key sensory adaptation; antennae are the primary olfactory organ, detecting chemical molecules, smelling, for food sources, and the pheromones of potential mates. The antennae are also used for mechanoreception, that is sensing touch and vibration; they can detect changes in air currents (alerting them to predators), and are used, not unlike say whiskers, to aid in navigation.

 

At the lower front of their large head are “mandibulate” mouthparts. Mandibles are a kind of small pincers, that protrude from the mouth that the grasshopper uses to grasp and tear off pieces of vegetation. The Crau Plain Grasshopper’s large head is large in part because it houses robust muscles to power the mandibles while feeding: to grip, grind, and crush the tough plant matter of their diet.

 

The Grasshopper has six legs attached to their stout thorax. They have particularly powerful hindlegs adapted for jumping. The fore and mid-legs are more slender and shorter, used for balance, walking, climbing, and feeding. They have short underdeveloped vestigial wings. They are incapable of flight, and rely on climbing, jumping and terrestrial locomotion, that is walking on the ground.

 

Behavior and Diet

They are markedly sedentary. In zoology, the term sedentary specifically refers to species that remain in a limited area, and exhibit minimal movement beyond their local environment. So this is different from our common use of sedentary to mean like lazy or inactive. Instead we’re describing how a species does not travel far from their initial locale.

 

In the case of the Crau Plain Grasshopper, a capture study found that the farthest a grasshopper traveled across their entire life, from their birthplace, was roughly 150 feet. 

 

Their day-to-day is focused on feeding, thermoregulation, and predator avoidance.

 

The Crau Plain Grasshopper is a generalist herbivore, meaning they eat plants and are not picky about which, feeding on a variety of available vegetation: Clover, Spurge, Southern Daisy, Dandelions, and various grasses, herbs, shrubs of their plains habitat.

 

They are ectothermic, cold blooded, relying on external heat sources to regulate their body temperature; basking in the sun to warm up and seeking shade to cool down.

 

The Crau Plain Grasshopper mainly relies on their camouflaging coloration to avoid predators, remaining extremely still when detected, though when directly threatened, their strong hindlimbs allow for evasive jumps. The grasshoppers’ primary predators are insectivorous avians, insect eating birds, like the lesser kestrel, cattle egret, and rook.

 

Reproduction

In areas of abundant food, the Crau Plain Grasshopper will sometimes gather in groups but otherwise they are generally solitary, only interacting to mate. Mating occurs in the late spring: May, June, July. The Grasshoppers do not form long term pair bonds, only coming together to copulate after which the male may pursue additional mating opportunities with other female. After successful mating, the female will burrow a small shallow hole in the soil, using her ovipositor. The ovipositor is a tube-like structure on the tip of a female grasshopper’s abdomen with two pairs of shovel-shaped valves that open and close to dig a chamber in the ground for the eggs. She lays a clutch of about 16 small eggs, each about the size of a grain of rice.

 

The eggs gestate underground for about 10 months, with the new nymphs hatching in early April of the following year. There is no parental care; the nymphs are born able to survive on their own. They grow quickly, molting 5 times, reaching reproductive maturity in roughly 6-8 weeks. Adult Crau Plain Grasshopper live for about a month, during which they attempt to mate, reproducing just once annually before dying, this is called a univoltine lifecyle. So, they spend roughly 10 months as an egg in the ground, 2 months as a growing nymph, 1 month as a reproductive adult.

In The Dream

————

In the dream,

 

as is true in waking life,

I live in a tower, closer to cloud than soil,

and in the dream, as is also true in life,

I long to be more near the earth.

 

A small breathing stone in a field of stones,

to be earthbound, to be intimate to dirt.

To be still with dust and rock and scrub,

bonded with the depths, not the skies.

 

To wander a windswept plain

and know its breath in my body like an old song,

A song I’ve heard my whole life.

That I sometimes sing too.

 

In the dream.

————

Habitat

The Crau Plain Grasshopper is native to the south of France, to the Coussouls de Crau, the Crau plain, roughly 30 miles northwest of Marseille and 10 miles from the Mediterranean coast, in the Bouches-du-Rhone department. They survive in three distinct isolated subpopulations, all within a roughly 15 square mile area.

 

The Crau Plain is a grassy steppe, a vast, flat expanse of sparse vegetation and stones, pebbles and gravel, deposits from a now dry tributary of the Rhone River. Roughly 20000 years ago tectonic activity shifted the tributary’s path and the resulting landscape is this semi-arid steppe. It is barren, the soil is dry and rocky, and the vegetation is mainly low-growing, drought-resistant plants: grasses, herbs, and shrubs.

 

The climate ranges widely. Summer high temps reach into the 90s°F and winter lows can dip below freezing and the region only sees about 20 inches of rainfall per year, most of which occurs in autumn and winter; the summer months are hot and very dry.

 

The Crau Plain Grasshopper shares its plain with:

Sweet Alyssum, Common Thyme, Pin-tailed Sandgrouse, Western Marsh Harrier, Great Egret, Star Clover, European Turtle-Dove, Northern Wheatear, European Rabbit, Rook, Purple Loosestrife, Viperine Snake, Common Crane, Mossy Stonecrop, Puncture Vine, Black Stork, Onion-Leafed Asphodel, Meadow Pipit, French Flax, Barn Swallow, Ocellated Lizard, Rough Poppy, Eurasian Kestrel, Mountain Rue, Bittersweet Nightshade, Common Swift, Common Mallow, Eurasian Linnet, Moth Vine, Reed Bunting, Pygmy Cudweed and many many more.

 

Threats

Historically, the Crau Plain Grasshopper population has been severely impacted by human habitat destruction. Large swaths of the plain have been developed for agriculture, highway infrastructure, military and industrial use. In the 20th and early 21st century, the Crau Plain Grasshopper population was estimated to have been reduced by 70% due to habitat loss.

 

Additionally grazing from domesticated sheep threatens the species. For over 4000 years, the Crau Plain has been an annual grazing site for these nomadic herds, who are shepherded from the Alps in the winter to graze on the plain through the spring, returning to the mountains come summer. Contemporary shifts in grazing patterns are affecting the Grasshopper. A 2019 study found that there is a kind of sweet spot of grazing that is best for the Grasshopper’s habitat. Undergrazing, so not enough grazing results in vegetation that is too high and too dense which hinders grasshopper movement and reduces the availability of viable soils to lay eggs. Overgrazing results in vegetation that is too sparse, which facilitates predation; the birds can better spot their Grasshopper prey. So changes in land use and grazing management is an ongoing threat.

 

Human induced climate change, due to the persistent overreliance on fossil fuel, is already affecting the Crau Plain Grasshopper population. During the last roughly ten years there were two summers of extensive (longer than normal) drought and one particularly cold winter; all of which impacts the Grasshopper’s reproductive success.

 

Conservation

Fortunately roughly three-quarters of the Crau Plain Grasshopper’s habitat is protected in the Réserve Naturelle des Coussouls de Crau. A broad partnership has been established between the reserve, the regional government, the Ecomuseum of the Crau, the Conservatoire d’espaces naturels de Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, and other local orgs. They are taking a wide-spread approach to conserving the Crau Plain Grasshopper: they’ve initiated education programs, installed fencing to prevent overgrazing, and instituted a grazing management program that includes economic compensation for shepherds.

 

They’ve undertaken predator monitoring studies and developed experiments with overhead fencing, to keep birds from the Grasshopper’s mating sites. The program is also exploring predator translocation; moving specifically the Lesser Kestrel to other parts of the Crau Plain.

 

And on-site and off-site captive breeding programs are in place. Those programs, in spring 2024 celebrated the successful reintroduction of 60 captive bred individuals and 30 egg pods in the Crau Plain Grasshopper’s native habitat.

 

Nevertheless the Crau Plain Grasshopper has been considered critically endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2012 and their population is currently in decline.

 

Our most recent estimates suggest that less than 5000 Crau Plain Grasshopper remain in the wild.

Citations 21:37

Information for today’s show about the Crau Plain Grasshopper was compiled from:

 

Bröder, Linda, Laurent Tatin, Anja Danielczak, Tobias Seibel, and Axel Hochkirch. 2019. “Intensive Grazing as a Threat in Protected Areas: The Need for Adaptive Management to Protect the Critically Endangered Crau Plain Grasshopper Prionotropis rhodanica.” Oryx 53 (2): 239–246. – https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605318000170

 

Bröder, Linda, Laurent Tatin, Axel Hochkirch, Anja Schuld, Linda Pabst, and Aurélien Besnard. 2020. “Optimization of Capture–Recapture Monitoring of Elusive Species Illustrated with a Threatened Grasshopper.” Conservation Biology 34 (3): 743–753. – https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13449

 

Bröder, Linda, Laurent Tatin, and Axel Hochkirch. 2023. “Quantifying Predation to Insects: An Experimental Approach.” Global Ecology and Conservation 44: e02485. – https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2023.e02485

 

Ecomuseum of the Crau. n.d. “The Crau Plain Grasshopper.” Life SOS Criquet de Crau. Accessed May 18, 2026. – https://www.lifecriquetdecrau.com/en/le-criquet-de-crau/lespece/

 

Foucart, Antoine, and Michel Lecoq. 1996. “Biologie et dynamique des populations de Prionotropis hystrix rhodanica Uvarov, 1923 dans la plaine de la Crau (France) (Orthoptera, Pamphagidae).” Bulletin de la Société entomologique de France 101 (1): 75–87. – https://doi.org/10.3406/bsef.1996.17220

 

Foucart, Antoine, and Michel Lecoq. 1998. “Major Threats to a Protected Grasshopper, Prionotropis hystrix rhodanica (Orthoptera, Pamphagidae, Akicerinae), Endemic to Southern France.” Journal of Insect Conservation 2 (3): 187–193. – https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009691612698

 

Foucart, Antoine, Michel Lecoq, and R. Sieglstetter. 1999. “Alarm on an Endemic Protected Grasshopper of the Crau Plain (Southern France), Prionotropis hystrix rhodanica (Orthoptera: Pamphagidae).” Annales de la Société Entomologique de France 35 (3-4): 337–340. – https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291864068_Alarm_on_an_endemic_protected_grasshopper_of_the_Crau_plain_Southern_France_Prionotropis_hystrix_rhodanica_Orthoptera_Pamphagidae

 

Hochkirch, Axel, Laurent Tatin, and Mark Stanley Price. 2015. Crau Plain Grasshopper Conservation Strategy. Technical Report. IUCN SSC Grasshopper Specialist Group. – https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.3933.3925

 

Hochkirch, A. & Tatin, L. 2016. Prionotropis rhodanica. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T15038481A47713628. – https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T15038481A47713628.en

 

iNaturalist - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?captive=false&nelat=43.60771507014928&nelng=4.966360194513175&quality_grade=research&subview=map&swlat=43.499515082721146&swlng=4.812502979314948&view=species

 

Piry, Sylvain, Karine Berthier, Laurence Streiff, Stephane Cros-Arteil, Antoine Foucart, Laurent Tatin, Linda Bröder, Axel Hochkirch, and Marie-Pierre Chapuis. 2018. “Fine-Scale Interactions Between Habitat Quality and Genetic Variation Suggest an Impact of Grazing on the Critically Endangered Crau Plain Grasshopper (Pamphagidae: Prionotropis rhodanica).” Journal of Orthoptera Research 27 (1): 61–73. – https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.27.15036

 

Streiff, R., P. Audiot, Antoine Foucart, and Michel Lecoq. 2006. “Genetic Survey of Two Endangered Grasshopper Subspecies, Prionotropis hystrix rhodanica and Prionotropis hystrix azami (Orthoptera, Pamphagidae): Within- and Between-Population Dynamics at the Regional Scale.” Conservation Genetics 7 (3): 331–344. – https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-005-9043-3

 

Tatin, Laurent, Raphaël Streiff, Antoine Foucart, and Gilles Besnard. 2013. “Chapitre 6: Présentation de l’espèce: Le criquet rhodanien.” In Écologie et conservation d’une steppe méditerranéenne: la plaine de Crau, edited by Laurent Tatin, Axel Wolff, Jean Boutin, Etienne Colliot, and Thierry Dutoit, 93–102. Versailles: Éditions Quae. – https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326389866_Le_criquet_rhodanien

 

Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouches-du-Rhône

 

For more information about conservation on the Crau Plain please see Conservatoire d’espaces naturels de Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur at https://cen-paca.org

Music 23:47

Pledge 28:51

I honor the lives of all Crau Plain Grasshopper. I will commit their name to my record. I am grateful to have shared time on our planet with this being. I lament the ways in which I and my species have harmed and diminished this species. I grieve.

 

And so, in the name of the Crau Plain Grasshopper I pledge to reduce my consumption. And my carbon footprint. And curb my wastefulness. I pledge to acknowledge and attempt to address the costs of my actions and inactions. And I pledge to resist the harm of plant and animal kin and their habitat, by individuals, corporations, and governments.

 

I forever pledge my song to the witness and memory of all life, to a broad celebration of biodiversity, and to the total liberation of all beings.

Rough Transcript

Intro 00:05

Welcome to Bad at Goodbyes.

On today’s show we consider the Torrey Pine.

Species Information 02:05

The Torrey Pine is a critically endangered evergreen conifer, native to the North American Pacific coast, with two populations in California, one near San Diego and one on Santa Rosa Island near Santa Barbara. Its scientific name is Pinus torreyana and it was first described in 1855.

 

Description

The Torrey Pine is a midsized conifer (meaning it reproduces via cones). Its growth form is wildly diverse based on growing conditions. It can range from 30 to over 100 feet in height depending on where it grows. Individuals sheltered in ravines and canyons grow tall and straight with a fairly symmetrical branching canopy. Individuals more exposed to coastal forces like wind and salt spray, are much shorter with a wide flattened irregular crown, with bent and twisted branches, and a crooked trunk that often leans away from prevailing coastal winds.

 

Their bark is dark grayish, redish-brown, with deep furrows and ridges. The bark is thick, a protective barrier against these environmental stressors

 

The Torrey Pine’s leaves are thin, fairly stiff, long cylindrical needles, each roughly a foot in length, and typically growing in bundles of 3-5 dark-green / grey-green needles near the ends of the branches. The needles are adapted for foliar water uptake, that’s absorbing atmospheric moisture (like clouds and fog) directly through its foliage.

 

Many plants in arid environments have waxy foliage, adapted to prevent water-loss. With the Torrey Pine that protective layer is sparse and uneven, and so moisture does not bead and quickly runoff, instead droplets flatten out, with a larger, thinner surface area, allowing for absorption directly through the needle’s surface.

 

And because many of the tree’s branches and needle-bundles grow upward-pointing, droplets that do form slide down the length of the needle, funneled directly into a highly absorbent area at the needles’ base, called the fascicle sheath which captures any excess runoff that wasn’t already absorbed by the needle’s surface.

 

Additionally, the Torrey Pine also relies on more common fog drip moisture capture. That is when condensation on the upper canopy needles and branches, falls, drips to the soil at the tree’s base, which is then later absorbed by the tree’s roots. So during say a prolonged heavy fog, needle surfaces may become fully saturated, unable to take on more water, so that additional moisture drips to the soil below providing water both to the tree itself and importantly to younger Torrey Pine saplings.

 

Reproduction

The Torrey Pine is monoecious. Both male and female reproductive structures grow on the same individual. The Torrey Pine is a conifer, so, these are cones. The smaller male pollen producing cones are yellow and cluster on lower branches. The female cones are red, and are located higher in the canopy.

 

The male cones release their pollen from January to March, and the pollen is dispersed by the wind. Torrey Pine generally cross pollenates, so the pollen released from the lower growing male cones requires a strong updrafting crosswind to carry the pollen to the upper branches of neighbor trees to fertilize the canopy growing female cones. Once fertilized the female cones can take up to 3 years to mature, developing into large 4-6 inch diameter woody cones, which hold roughly 100 hard shelled seeds tucked beneath protective woody scales. In a fairly unusual adaptation, the Torrey Pine’s seed cones remain on the tree, with the woody scales opening to release seeds very slowly, over the course of up to fifteen years. Over which the seeds do remain viable. Once released the seeds have a small wing, but research has demonstrated that the wing, due to the weight of the seeds, plays little role in wind distribution, most seeds simply fall beneath the parent plant. Any farther distribution is via zoochory, by animals, in this case by the California Scrub Jay. The Jay feeds on the seeds, and will frequently gather and store surplus seeds in small caches across its range, using its bill to bury the seeds. Forgotten caches, seeds essentially planted by the bird but not returned to, may successfully germinate and grow into saplings.

 

It takes roughly 12 years for a sapling to reach reproductive maturity, and the Torrey Pine can live to over 150 years-old.

In The Dream

————

In the dream,

 

A century bent by the slow forces,

Tender to the wind and the sea.

To anchor the soil

To invite the jaybird to supper

To drink sunlight, and fog.

 

To holdfast through storm,

To choke upon mansmoke,

To thirst in drought,

To kiss the sea-spray,

To age into a gnarly twisted beauty,

To live long

Resilient and perhaps quietly defiant.

 

In the dream.

————

Habitat

The Torrey Pine is native to the Pacific Coast of North America, in southern California. They’re found in two subpopulations: along a narrow strip of coast in San Diego County, in the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. And on Santa Rosa Island, roughly 25 miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, in the Channel Islands National Park.

 

This is a California Coastal Sage and [shapp-er-EL] Chaparral ecoregion, a kind of arid fog belt ecosystem where native species have adapted to survive in a low precipitation environment. The landscape is rugged, with steep sandstone cliffs, jagged coastal bluffs, rocky gullies, and deep ravines. We find our Torrey Pine in scattered groves and as singular individuals anchoring their roots into thin sandy soils in canyons, and on ridgetops exposed to strong ocean winds and heavy salt spray.

 

This is a temperate maritime climate. Summer temperatures average in the mid-80s°F; winter temps average in the 40s°F. Rainfall is sparse, averaging under roughly 15 inches per year, falling primarily in winter and early spring. In the long, very dry summer months, marine fog often blankets the coastline, providing essential that moisture to species like our Torrey Pine adapted to collecting it.

 

Torrey Pine share their coastal habitat with:

California Scrub Jay, Black Sage, Striped Skunk, California Poppy, Western Yarrow, California Ground Squirrel, Santa Rosa Island Manzanita, White Sage, Bobcat, Red-tailed Hawk, California Buckwheat, Bush Poppy, Slender Wild Oat, Coyote, Western Fence Lizard, Mule Deer, Great Blue Heron, Oniongrass, California Scrub Oak, California Sagebrush, Saw-toothed Goldenbush, Purple Cudweed, Bent Grass, California Quail, Desert Cottontail, California Kingsnake, Anna’s Hummingbird, Brown Pelican, Long-tailed Weasel, and many many more.

 

Threats

Historically the Torrey Pine’s population has been profoundly affected by human habitat destruction and encroachment. Specifically, the introduction of domesticated livestock, pigs, sheep, and cattle, to Santa Rosa Island in the 1800s led to a near collapse of the Torrey Pine population. By 1888 only 100 trees remained on the island.

 

The mainland population was also affected by domesticated grazers, as well harvested for timber, and logged for fuel.

 

Today the remaining Torrey Pine population is threatened by the California five-spined engraver beetle and the Red Turpentine. These are bark beetles that tunnel under the tree’s bark and disrupt nutrient flow, sometimes leading to mortality. From 2006 and 2018, roughly 12% of the trees in the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve died due to beetle infestations.

 

Human induced climate change, brought on by persistent overreliance on fossil fuel, presents immediate and long term threats to the Torrey Pine. Global warming is resulting in longer dry seasons, and less rainfall overall in Southern California, a stressor on the Torrey Pine. Climate change is also producing more frequent extreme weather. And with a concentrated, small population, the risk is a single weather phenomenon, a stochastic event, like say a coastal mudslide, could severely reduce the Torrey Pine population all at once.

 

Additionally global warming and urban development are resulting in particularly specific circumstances that threaten the Torrey Pine. San Diego is growing; replacing undeveloped land with human infrastructure like roads and highways. Concrete and asphalt hold and release heat which generates a heat island around the city. Relatedly, warming oceans are increasing surface temperatures along the coast. This combined heat is affecting patterns of cloud cover. There is a specific altitude at which a rising air mass cools enough for its water vapor to condense into liquid droplets, this is called the Lifting Condensation Level. So clouds only forming now at higher atmospheric elevations than in the past. The risk is the clouds forming too high for the Torrey Pine to utilize that moisture via their fog capture adaptations. The fog still rolls in, but above the tree’s canopy.

 

Conservation

Fortunately historic conservation efforts have helped keep the Torrey Pine from extinction. Portions of the mainland population were protected as early as 1899, and by the 1990s Santa Rosa Island was completely cleared of livestock and feral introduced species. Today the majority of wild Torrey Pine are actively managed on state or federally protected land in the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve or in the Channel Islands National Park.

 

Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve has developed a successful program to capture bark beetle using pheromone traps, reducing pressures on our Pine.

 

Torrey Pine seeds have been collected and are preserved at the San Diego Zoo’s Native Plant Seed Bank. The zoo has also initiated an off-site program to selectively cultivate bark beetle resistant saplings which will then be reintroduced to their habitat.

 

Nevertheless the Torrey Pine has been considered critically endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2013 and their population is in decline.

 

Our most recent counts estimate that less than 4500 Torrey Pine remain in the wild.

Citations 22:46

Information for today’s show about the Torrey Pine was compiled from:

 

American Conifer Society. n.d. “Pinus torreyana.” American Conifer Society. – https://conifersociety.org/conifers/pinus-torreyana

 

Biondi, Franco, Daniel R. Cayan, and Wolfgang H. Berger. 1997. “Dendroclimatology of Torrey Pine (Pinus torreyana Parry ex Carr.).” The American Midland Naturalist 138 (2): 237–51. – https://doi.org/10.2307/2426817

 

California State Parks. n.d. “Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve.” Accessed May 16, 2026. –  https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=657

 

Di Santo, L.N., Mead, A., Wright, J.W. and Hamilton, J.A. (2025), Genetic Basis of Reproductive Isolation in Torrey Pine (Pinus torreyana Parry): Insights From Hybridization and Adaptation. Evolutionary Applications, 18: e70094. –  https://doi.org/10.1111/eva.70094

 

Di Santo, L. N., Hoban, S., Parchman, T. L., Wright, J. W., & Hamilton, J. A. (2022). Reduced representation sequencing to understand the evolutionary history of Torrey pine (Pinus torreyana parry) with implications for rare species conservation. Molecular Ecology, 31, 4622–4639. – https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.16615

 

Esser, Lora L. 1993. “Pinus torreyana.” In Fire Effects Information System. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory. –  https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/tree/pintor/all.html

 

Farjon, A. 2013. Pinus torreyana. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013: e.T42424A2979186. – https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2013-1.RLTS.T42424A2979186.en

 

Hamilton, Jill A., Alayna Mead, Jessica W. Wright, and Mikhail V. Matz. 2017. “Genetic Conservation and Management of the California Endemic, Torrey Pine (Pinus torreyana Parry): Implications of Genetic Rescue in a Genetically Depauperate Species.” Ecology and Evolution 7 (18): 7370–81. – https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.3306

 

Johnson, M., Vander Wall, S.B. & Borchert, M. A comparative analysis of seed and cone characteristics and seed-dispersal strategies of three pines in the subsection Sabinianae . Plant Ecology 168, 69–84 (2003). – https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024470224134

 

McMaster, Gregory S., and Paul H. Zedler. 1981. “Delayed Seed Dispersal in Pinus torreyana (Torrey Pine).” Oecologia 51 (1): 62–66. – https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00344654

 

Steele, Stephanie, and Christa Horn. 2021. “The Torrey Pine.” Zoonooz, January 20, 2021. – https://sandiegozoowildlifealliance.org/story-hub/zoonooz/the-torrey-pine

 

Tianshi, E., Chau, P.C. Foliar water uptake in the needles of Pinus torreyana. Plant Ecology 223, 465–477 (2022). - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-022-01222-z

 

Wells, Molly L., and Arthur Getis. 1999. “The Spatial Characteristics of Stand Structure in Pinus torreyana.” Plant Ecology 143 (2): 153–70. – https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009866702320

 

Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrey_pine

 

Williams, A., Still, C., Fischer, D., & Leavitt, S. (2008). The influence of summertime fog and overcast clouds on the growth of a coastal Californian pine: a tree-ring study. Oecologia, 156(3), 601-611. Pubmed ID: 18368424. – http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00442-008-1025-y

For more information about Torrey Pines conservation, please see the Torrey Pine Conservancy at https://www.torreypines.org

Music 24:29

Pledge 30:39

I honor the lives of all Torrey Pine. I will commit their name to my record. I am grateful to have shared time on our planet with this being. I lament the ways in which I and my species have harmed and diminished this species. I grieve.

 

And so, in the name of the Torrey Pine I pledge to reduce my consumption. And my carbon footprint. And curb my wastefulness. I pledge to acknowledge and attempt to address the costs of my actions and inactions. And I pledge to resist the harm of plant and animal kin and their habitat, by individuals, corporations, and governments.

 

I forever pledge my song to the witness and memory of all life, to a broad celebration of biodiversity, and to the total liberation of all beings.