hospitable

Relocating native plants

May 2, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Climate change is endangering many native plant species. As the climate warms, many species will need to establish themselves in new places that are more hospitable than their historic ranges. But many native plants in the U.S. cannot move themselves by natural forces quickly enough to avoid climate-change driven extinction. For such plants to survive into the future, they will need human help to move into adjacent areas, a process called “managed relocation.”

Such a process has its problems. There is no guarantee that a plant will thrive in a new area. On the other hand, relocating plant species historically has often had disastrous consequences. Consider, for example, the story of kudzu in the American south.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have studied this problem in detail and reported the results in the journal Global Change Biology.

The issue is how to help plants move successfully without their causing harm in their new locations. The study found that some plant traits can lead to success and some to ecological disaster. In some cases, the same traits that help plants to establish themselves in a new location make them powerful invasive species. Traits like having a large size predispose a plant to not only establish itself but spread wildly.

The study recommends that people managing relocation need to focus on plants whose traits they have determined to be conducive to successful relocation but more unlikely to cause harm in their new environment.

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If Native Plants Are Going to Survive Climate Change, They Need Our Help to Move—Here’s How to Do It Safely

Photo, posted August 17, 2012, courtesy of Joshua Mayer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Moving Endangered Species | Earth Wise

December 5, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

People have intentionally or accidentally introduced numerous invasive species to habitats around the world. At the same time, the planet’s wildlife is in a steep decline. A recent study estimated that the populations of over 5,000 vertebrate species have declined by an average of nearly 70% since 1970. A United Nations report warns that human activity has threatened as many as a million species with extinction.

With all of this as a background, there is climate change that is altering the habitats of the world’s species – warming lakes and oceans, turning forests into grasslands, tundra into woodland, and melting glaciers. In response to these changes, living things are rearranging themselves, migrating to more hospitable locations. But many species are just not capable of finding more suitable habitats on their own.

Conservationists are now increasingly considering the use of assisted migration. In some cases, when a species’ critical habitat has been irreversibly altered or destroyed, agencies are establishing experimental populations outside of the species’ historical range. Such actions are often deemed extreme but may be increasingly necessary.

However, clear-cut cases are relatively rare. More likely, it is a more difficult judgement call as to whether assisted migration is a good idea or is possibly a threat to the ecosystem of the species’ new location. The relative dearth of assisted migration experiments is less likely a result of legal barriers than it is a lack of scientific and societal consensus on the practice. Scientists are now trying to develop risk-analysis frameworks that various agencies can use in considering potential assisted migration experiments.

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Last Resort: Moving Endangered Species in Order to Save Them

Photo, posted March 18, 2010, courtesy of Jean via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Scandinavian Wine

December 20, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The warming climate is creating some unexpected entrepreneurial opportunities. Many places that have traditionally dominated the wine industry are starting to be worried that the local climates that made them ideal for vineyards are changing and becoming much less ideal. On the other hand, places where wine-making was regarded as a losing proposition are becoming much more hospitable. A prime example is Scandinavia.

Nordic vintners are increasingly convinced that they can develop thriving commercial operations in what used to be places that are too cold for successful wine-making.

Denmark now has 90 commercial vineyards, up from just two 15 years ago. Forty vineyards have sprung up in Sweden. About a dozen vineyards are now operating as far north as Norway.

Many of these Nordic vineyards are in the startup stage and are tiny compared with the established wineries of Europe. Europe has 10 million acres of vineyards, which is enough to cover almost the entire country of Denmark. At the moment, there are only about 1,000 acres of vineyards in Denmark and Sweden.

But, looking forward, Scandinavia’s climate is forecast to be more like northern France, as regional temperatures climb as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Over the past decade, warming has produced milder winters, a longer growing season, and even a small but rising number of award-winning Scandinavian wines.

Meanwhile, traditional wine-growing regions are also dealing with climate change. Winemakers in France, for example, are experimenting with grapes from warmer countries like Tunisia to see if they can retain the tastes and yields that are the basis of a multibillion-dollar wine industry. Spanish and Italian winemakers are planting grapes higher up on mountainsides or on shaded north-facing slopes to preserve the quality of their wine.

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Scandinavian Wine? A Warming Climate Tempts Entrepreneurs

Photo, posted August 24, 2019, courtesy of Ron Reiring via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.