If temperatures become warmer, sugar maple trees will migrate northward, scientists say.
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How will global warming affect plants?
By Judy Lowe | 07.02.09
In areas of the world where temperatures are documented to be growing warmer, plants are showing the effects. Some of these effects are good – increased microbial action in the soil making plants more productive. Some are bad – plants moving to cooler locations.
And other effects tend to be neutral (or maybe it’s who’s doing the perceiving).
Gardeners, for instance, often long for plants that grow only in climates that have typically had winter weather warmer than their own. But now they’re finding that many plants are making themselves at home where they wouldn’t grow before. (This article in USA Today discusses it in more detail.)
The downside of that is, potentially: Plants that are currently a big part of a particular climate — sugar maple trees in New England, for instance — will be sorely missed if they migrate northward.
Warmer temperatures – say, 3 degrees C warmer – and stronger winds (which are considered part of global warming) actually quicken the spread of seeds, pollen, and plants, noted Science Daily earlier this month. This could help plants survive and be useful in repopulating forests that have been leveled by fire.
The plants best suited to move easily into a new climate zone tend to be those that live on the edge of their current zone, said researchers in a study published in the journal New Phytologist.
Less snow cover – which keeps soil temperatures steady – would lead to more thawing and refreezing of soil, which adversely affects roots of many plants. However, reports TreeHugger, this heaving action “increases microbial action and breaks up the soil, make plants more productive.”
We’ve written previously about possible changes to various weeds due to climate change. A study reported in January noted that if higher temperatures cause invasive plants to move to areas with warmer temperatures (and some invasive plants could become less competitive than they are now, researchers found), this will provide space for welcome restoration of their current acreage.
On the food front: A couple of days ago, in an article titled Crops face toxic timebomb in warmer world: study, Reuters noted research findings that tested several food crops such as cassava and sorghum – which are staples in Africa, Asia, and Latin America – to see how they reacted to elevated CO2 levels.
One result: At double the current rates of Co2, the plants produced much higher levels of chemicals that break down in cyanide gas if chewed or crushed and much lower levels of protein. (The protein is necessary for people and cattle to break down the cyanide so it has no effect on them.)
Some other reports you might be interested in:
Extreme Weather Postpones Flowering Time of Plants
Natives will survive climate change, study finds
Plants “Climbing” Mountains Due to Global Warming
Will global warming increase plant frost damage?
Rising Surface Ozone Reduces Plant Growth and Adds to Global Warming
[Added later:] Why Invasive Plants Take Over
Hooray for Global Warming! [2007]
All in all, the answer to our question is: It’s a mixed bag. Stay tuned for more research – and real-life experience.
<< What temperature is the Earth supposed to be? | MainComments
2. Marie Dyas | 07.05.09
Great and informative article. It will be very interesting to see what happens in the future regarding a whole slew of plants and their transformation, adaptation and elimination.
3. Denise Thornton | 07.09.09
How global climate change will affect plants has no simple answer. The Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts (WICCI) has spent the past two years pooling the talents of University of Wisconsin researchers and other state agencies to begin making projections of what the upper Midwest can expect. Even in this one region, the reactions of plants will be complex.
The upper Midwest will benefit in some ways from a longer growing season. Plant hardiness zones are marching northward. Between 1990 and 2006 the colder Zone 3 is gone from Wisconsin and the warmer Zone 5 has moved in. However we must now brace for diseases and insect pests which can survive our newly milder winters
Rapid climate change versus slow-growing trees is not a fair fight. A drought of several years could cause abrupt mortality. More generally, constant stress from temperature and moisture changes, as well as newly arrived southern invasive species and insects will take a dreadful toll. Most of the trees that make up our northern forests, including Red Pine, Jack Pine, white Spruce, Balsam Fir and the lovely Paper Birch will be pushed north into Canada.
Organic farming, which is growing presence here, will be hard put to continue in the face of an invasion of southern pests and disease. That is a topic in itself, which I have written about recently for Organic Broadcaster.
Since plants are the basis of our food chain, it’s a good idea to be asking how climate change will affect them. But don’t expect to get an easy answer.
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1. kim | 07.02.09
The answer to this is easy; the globe cooling for the next 20 to 30 years will provoke widespread crop failures and starvation. If the sun is getting into the act with a new Grand Minimum the range of all plants will migrate southward.
We are cooling, folks; for how long even kim doesn’t know.
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