Michael G. Barbour (born 1942, died 7 January 2021)[1][2][3] was a Californian botanist and ecologist.
This research was conducted in Alta and Baja California along the Pacific coast of North America, on the Gulf of Mexico coast, in northwestern Argentina, in southern Australia, in coastal and arid parts of Israel, in mountains of central-to-northern Spain, in mountains of the Canary Islands, and in mountains of Coast Range and Sierra Nevada of California.
Barbour worked at UC Davis from 1967, initially as a faculty member in the Botany Department, then moving to Plant Biology, Environmental Horticulture, and finally Plant Sciences, and retired in 2007.
His research was on the vegetation of such habitats as coastal dune, tidal salt marsh, montane conifer forest, vernal pool, Mediterranean-climate woodland, and warm desert scrub.
His focus was on determining how vegetation or dominant species tolerate and respond to particular environmental stresses such as salt spray, soil salinity, competition, snow pack, summer drought and heat, freezing temperatures, fog, soil structure, and wildfire.