The Pecos Sunflower- Drew Stieber

By Drew Stieber

The Pecos Sunflower is a plant that grows exclusively in desert wetlands, which are a unique habitat. It is an annual, herbaceous plant that prefers to grow in “wet alkaline soils at spring seeps, wet meadows, stream courses and pond margins” (Welch and Reisberg 3). As shown below, they look quite similar to the regular sunflower, but differ by having narrower leaves. The common sunflower also blooms earlier on in May to August, whereas the Pecos sunflower blooms around September and October (Welch and Reisberg 3).

The Pecos Sunflower (fws.gov)

The Pecos Sunflower habitat (fws.gov)

The historic distribution of the Pecos sunflower is somewhat of a mystery. Originally only thought to exist in a single area near Fort Stockton in Pecos County, Texas, later field surveys found several populations in other areas of Texas as well as New Mexico (Poole and Sivinski 1). However, within those areas, the sites are rather small. “Most Pecos sunflowers are limited to less than 2 hectares” (Sivinski 4). The number of sunflowers within the sites tends to very, due to the fact that these flowers are annuals. It can be as small as a couple hundred to as large as a couple hundred thousand at any given site (US Fish and Wildlife Service 4). A visual representation of the geographic distribution of the Pecos sunflower is shown below.

The Pecos sunflower joined the endangered species list as a threatened species on October 20, 1999 with a recovery priority of 8 (US Fish and Wildlife Service iii). This means that the species is moderately threatened but has a high potential for recovery.

(federalregister.gov)

Because the Pecos sunflowers are dependent on wetlands made from natural ground deposits, habitat degradation and destruction has significantly impacted the species’ ability to thrive. When it was listed, however, “threats pertaining to each of the ESA’s five listing factors were documented” (US Fish and Wildlife Service 8). Those factors are habitat destruction, disease and predation, inadequate existing regulatory mechanisms, over utilization and other natural or man-made factors.

            The Pecos sunflower’s habitat has been threatened due to the lowering of water tables, most for agricultural or municipal use (Sivinski 8). Livestock will graze on the young bulbs of the Pecos sunflower when other greenery is scarce, however “no insects or diseases that cause mortality have been noted in Pecos sunflower populations” (Van Auken 9).

The recovery plan for the Pecos sunflower focuses on maintaining the seven existing populations of the species in Texas and New Mexico. A total of four “highly disjunct regional areas contain the entire genomic and ecotypical characteristics of the Pecos sunflower” (US Fish and Wildlife Service iii). Basically what that means is that the seven populations of the flower fall into one of four distinct regions. The goal of the recovery plan is to manage and protect “a significant, sustainable portion of each of the four region’s Pecos sunflower habitats” (US Fish and Wildlife Service 14). Future habitat degradation and loss will be combated through protecting wetlands that the flowers grow in from drainage for human or agricultural use, as well as sectioning off land specifically for the preservation of the flowers. With the implementation of this plan, delisting could occur as early as 2019 (US Fish and Wildlife Service iv).