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Arlee Montalvo

Position: Retired  RCRCD Senior Plant Restoration Ecologist
Email Address: montalvo@ucr.edu

Contact Arlee for information about habitat restoration, propagating native plants and appropriate use of native plant seed sources!

Arlee has served as the Plant Restoration Ecologist for the Riverside-Corona Resource Conservation District since 2004 where she has been doing habitat restoration research, planning, implementation, and public outreach.  She has also coordinated and implemented the collection and growing of native plant materials for projects. She came to this position after doing research for over 25 years in both applied and basic plant ecology, ecological genetics, pollination ecology, and ecological restoration. After graduating from the University of California Riverside (UCR) in 1991, she held postdoctoral fellowships at UC Irvine and the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station where she focused on the effects of translocation of geographically diverse plant populations used in restoration in Southern California.  She then held a research position at UCR where she coordinated restoration research and a large habitat restoration project, worked on seed certification of native seeds, researched technical aspects of seed germination, seeding, and plant production, and began work on the practical aspects of procuring genetically local seeds for restoration projects.  She has published both scientific and practical papers, native plant profiles, and co-authored a publication to guide planners and land managers about how to choose genetically appropriate plant materials for native planting projects. While at the RCRCD, she coauthored a book on the native flora, 32 native plant profiles to help practitioners source native plant materials, and a research report on species distribution modeling with climate change projections for foundation shrubs of coastal sage scrub, low elevation chaparral, and alluvial scrub vegetation.

Contact me for info re: habitat restoration, propagating native plants and appropriate use of native plant seed sources!