In a surprise to no one, descendants of plants that survived 350 million years of climate extremes, volcanoes, meteor impacts, mass extinction events and ice ages seem able to cope with moderate modern weather. Not only that, places where the weather varied a lot in the 1960s are still like that, and the plants that liked those conditions still like those conditions. I mean, really, give me your money.
Does this mean we can protect forests of the future by creating climate variability now?
Exposure to past temperature variability may help forests cope with climate changeRachel Harper Institute of Physics
Close relatives of Ginkgo Biloba trees have been around for nearly 200 million years. | Photo Jean-Pol Grandmont |
A new study out today in the first issue of Environmental Research: Ecology assessed effects of past and current climate variability on global forest productivity. The work highlights sensitive regions where forests may be most at risk as the planet warms and temperatures become more extreme. The framework can help set conservation priorities, support forest adaptation efforts, and improve carbon accounting.
Lead author Winslow Hansen, a forest ecologist at Cary Institute of [...]
