relocating

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.

**********

Web Links

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

Climate change is taking its toll on forests, farms, freshwater sources, and the economy, but ocean ecosystems remain the epicenter of global warming. In fact, oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions since the 1970s.

As a result, many marine fish species are responding to ocean warming by relocating towards the poles. According to new research recently published in the journal Science Advances, climate change is causing widespread habitat loss for some of the ocean’s top fish predators, driving these species northward.

The research team studied 12 species of highly migratory fish predators, including sharks, tuna, and billfish, such as marlin and swordfish, inhabiting the Northwest Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. These two regions are undergoing rapid changes in sea surface temperatures, and are among the fastest warming ocean regions on earth.

The research, which was led by researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, with collaboration from San Diego State University, NOAA, and several other U.S. institutions, found that most species will encounter widespread habitat losses by 2100. Some species could lose upwards of 70% of suitable habitat by that year. Areas offshore of the Southeast United States and Mid-Atlantic coasts were identified as likely hotspots of multi-species habitat loss.

According to the researchers, strategies for managing fish have historically been static. But marine systems need to be treated as dynamic and changing. This study helps provide the scientific data needed for marine conservation and fisheries management efforts.

**********

Web Links

Top fish predators could suffer wide loss of suitable habitat by 2100 due to climate change

Photo, posted March 18, 2015, courtesy of Kenneth Hagemeyer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Relocating native plants

Web Links

Top Fish Predators And Climate Change | Earth Wise

Climate change is taking its toll on forests, farms, freshwater sources, and the economy, but ocean ecosystems remain the epicenter of global warming. In fact, oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions since the 1970s.

Web Links