Plants Must Migrate to Survive Climate Change. But They Need Our Help

When we talk about climate migration, we don’t normally picture a seed blowing uphill in the wind, or landing in a cooler place among a pile of fox poop. Yet just like humans, plants around the world are being forced to find new homes because of shifting climate conditions in their original habitats. The problem is, according to two new studies, they don’t always make it where they need to go. The sheer speed of temperature increases in the climate crisis era, combined with the fragmentation of landscapes by human activity, is making it harder for trees and other plants to follow their preferred climate conditions. These changes are disrupting a millenia-old process of plant migration, and it could pose a major challenge to global efforts to protect wildlife and reforest land to fight climate change. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Though we tend to think of plants as static, many of them have always had to move to survive. A study published Feb. 6 by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that 75% of the dominant plant groups in North America, including trees like pines and oaks, have migrated across the region over the last 18,000 years to track the movement of their ideal growing conditions. That plant migration will be harder to pull off over the coming decades, according to Jenny McGuire, a climate scientist at Georgia Tech and a co-author of the study. “There’s so many barriers and filters to plant movement now. T...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change Conservation embargoed study healthscienceclimate Source Type: news