Two UA graduate students will use their spring break for more than guzzling beer and getting tan.

Pamela Swantek and Dale Turner will survey vegetation in the Arizona desert in an attempt to find out its growth rates and numbers.

Swantek, renewable natural resources graduate student, will be at Saguaro National Park during spring break week, investigating whether fire has any bearing on the growth of saguaro cacti and palo verde trees.

"Fire is not a huge evolutionary war (against trees and cacti)," said Swantek, "but it does affect their lives."

Swantek said three things are increasing fires in the desert areas. Urbanization, wet winters and unnatural grasses brought in for grazing: all feed the fires that can kill saguaro and palo verde. In addition to monitoring the cacti and trees that were marked by recent fires, Swantek will go through the park's records and create a geographic information system detailing past fires and the damage they did.

"I'm creating national records and putting in a permanent study plot," Swantek said.

Turner, graduate student in wildlife ecology, will do a sampling of vegetation in the Mohawk Sand Dunes, 40 miles east of Yuma.

Over five days, he will cover a two-meter by two-meter area to determine the types and numbers of plants located there.

"The area I'm studying is on a military bombing range," Turner said. "The military likes to monitor the health of (vegetation at) the sand dunes over time."

The vegetation sampling will serve a dual purpose. Turner will use it for his research about fringe-toed lizards, and the military will use it as a basis for continued sand dune research.

Swantek will be working alone, but Turner is hiring two people to help him with the long days.

"I recruited my parents, who are both retired, to help," Turner said. "They went with Earthwatch last year and learned to do field work, so this year they are helping me."