April Speaker - How Joshua trees and yucca moths evolve together in a changing world by Dr. Jeremy B. Yoder
Jeremy B. Yoder is an Associate Professor of Biology at California State University Northridge, where he studies how interactions between species have shaped Earth’s biodiversity. He is a founding collaborator on the Joshua Tree Genome Project, and on the interdisciplinary Queer in STEM studies of LGBTQ+ experiences in scientific and technical careers. He has written about biological and human diversity for outlets including the LA Review of Books, The Awl, and Slate; and in 2025 he received the IDEA Award from the American Society of Naturalists, the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the Society for Systematic Biologists.
Joshua trees and yucca moths are a “textbook” example of mutually dependent species — the moths are the trees’ sole pollinators, and the trees provide the moths with their only food source. My lab at CSU Northridge studies how interacting species shape each other’s evolutionary history, and Joshua trees and their pollinators provide a perfect test case, an intimate beneficial interaction that plays out in some of the harshest landscapes in North America. I’ll discuss how we’re using genetic data, experiments, and even records from contributors to the iNaturalist platform to understand how Joshua trees and yucca moths have evolved together through the heat and drought of the Mojave Desert — and what they may face in a climate-changed future.
