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Calif. Plants Squeezed by Climate Change

Jessica Marshall, Discovery News

Indeed, how quickly and successfully plants can move across the landscape is one of the big uncertainties in the projections, Loarie said.

"The changes expected to occur are 10 times faster than the last ice age," he said. "This is happening faster, and it's happening against a much more fragmented landscape. As these patches of native vegetation become increasingly smaller, it's hard to imagine, say, a native wildflower going from the Sierra Nevada foothills and crossing Sacramento to the coastal mountains."

Maintaining corridors for plants to move through should be a priority, both Raven and Rundel told Discovery News.

"We tend to think about corridors for wildlife, but in the longer run we need to think about genetic corridors," Rundel said. The genetic variation present in a particular plant species at the southern end of its range may be important for its survival in more northerly environments as the climate warms, for instance.

Another uncertainty in the current projections is how much temperatures will rise, Loarie said. However, current emissions are on pace to exceed the more extreme climate scenario the group considered, the previous worst-case scenario considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Refining these models to include other local conditions like soil type should be the next step, Rundel said.

"If you talk to anyone that's a park superintendent today, one of the questions they're being asked is, 'What are you going to do about climate change? Are our parks going to be in the right place?'" he said.

Botanical gardens and seed banks may become important resources for assisting with the plants' migration, Raven said. Those kinds of organizations "are always interested in restoration. The difference is, you might be restoring them in different places."

Related Links:

Discovery News blog: Environmental Case

Maps Showing Plant Ranges in California

PLoS ONE

How Stuff Works: Climate Change Discovery Earth Live