Phillip W. Rundel

Is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has written extensively on the ecology of California desert plants as well as from the winter-rainfall Atacama Desert of northern Chile and arid Succulent Karoo of South Africa.

Rundel and Gustafson have previously coauthored two books - Introduction to the Plant Life of Southern California: Coast to Foothills (University of California Press, 2005) and Hawaiian Plant Life: Vegetation and Flora (University of Hawai’i Press, 2014).