From Duke University and the “I was sure those tree rings were linear indicators” department, comes this news: Climate Change May Speed Up Forests’ Life Cycles
DURHAM, N.C. – Many climate studies have predicted that tree species will respond to global warming by migrating via seed dispersal to cooler climates. But a new study of 65 different species in 31 eastern states finds evidence of a different, unexpected response.
Nearly 80 percent of the species aren’t yet shifting their geographic distributions to higher latitudes. Instead, they’re staying in place – but speeding up their life cycles.
The Duke University-led study, published online Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Global Change Biology, is the first to show that a changing climate may have dual impacts on forests. It adds to a growing body of evidence, including a 2011 study by the same Duke team, that climate-driven migration is occurring much more slowly than predicted, and most plant species may not be able to migrate fast enough to stay one step ahead of rising temperatures.
“Our analysis reveals no consistent, large-scale northward migration is taking place. Instead, most trees are responding through faster turnover – meaning they are staying in place but speeding up their life cycles in response to longer growing seasons and higher temperatures,” said James S. Clark, H.L. Blomquist Professor of Environment at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.
Anticipating the impacts of this unexpected change on U.S. forests is an important issue for forest managers and for the nation as a whole, Clark said. It will have far-reaching consequences for biodiversity and carbon storage.
To test whether trees are migrating northward, having faster turnover, or both, the scientists went through decades of data on 65 dominant tree species in the 31 eastern states, compiled by the USDA Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis program. They used computer models to analyze the temperature and precipitation requirements of the trees at different life stages, and also considered factors like reproductive dependence of young and adult trees.
“The patterns we were able to see from this massive study are consistent with forests having faster turnover, where young trees tend to be more abundant than adult trees in warm, wet climates. This pattern is what we would expect to see if populations speed up their life cycle in warming climates,” said lead author Kai Zhu, a doctoral student of Clark’s at Duke. “This is a first sign of climate change impacts, before we see large-scale migrations. It gives a very different picture of how trees are responding to climate change.”
The fact that most trees are not yet showing signs of migration “should increase awareness that there is a significant lag time in how tree species are responding to the changing climate,” Zhu said.
The study was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and Zhu was supported by an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant.
Christopher W. Woodall, research forester at the U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Research Station in St. Paul, Minn., Souparno Ghosh, a postdoctoral researcher in Duke’s Department of Statistical Science, and Alan E. Gelfand, J.B. Duke Professor of Statistics and Decision Sciences in Duke’s Department of Statistical Science, were co-authors of the study. Clark also holds an appointment as professor in the Department of Statistical Science.
Paper:
“Dual Impacts of Climate Change: Forest Migration and Turnover through Life History”
Kai Zhu, Christopher W. Woodall, Souparno Ghosh, Alan E. Gelfand, James S. Clark
Published Sept. 11, 2013, in Global Change Biology
DOI: 10.1111/gcb.12382
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12382/abstract
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Um.. maybe plants aren’t migrating, because the climate isn’t actually changing !
First prove the local climate is changing ! (references to GISS temps not relevant)
what rising temperatures? have these nonsense jockies actually used the same physical temperature data sets we all use that show no statistically relevant warming for 16+ years?
looks like they didn’t – “They used computer models to analyze the temperature and precipitation requirements of the trees at different life stages, and also considered factors like reproductive dependence of young and adult trees.”
Well, maybe it takes 20 years for the trees to pack their bags and get hiking, so they haven’t gotten around to it yet. Or maybe there’s something wrong with the computer models. For some strange reason, I just don’t trust computer models anymore. Not when it comes to climate-whatever-it-is-now, at any rate.
Off topic: Durão Barroso, President of the European Comission, talking about the 99% cientific “consensus”. A must.
http://youtu.be/aylLhPHI1TI
So the trees are not migrating because temps have not gone up.
Maybe the reason for the increased activity is purely the increase in CO2.
Time the mind fix was dropped and the zealots looked at the real world
I keep hearing, via BBC science programmes, that this or that scientific paper has shown some effect or other due to rising temperatures. Usually concluding with, climate change, extinction, save the species and need more funding. The odd thing is the research for these papers have all been completed during a period (within 20 years), when the temperature trend in the UK has been in decline. Is this false science or peer reviewed stupidity?
After reading the abstract, I think the authors’ first priority should be to learn to write comprehensible English.
Perhaps they are speeding up their life cycles because of all that delicious CO2 we are pumping, ad gratis, in to their environment.
So trees actually like a warmer wetter climate with higher levels of CO2. Who knew?
“It adds to a growing body of evidence, including a 2011 study by the same Duke team, that climate-driven migration is occurring much more slowly than predicted, and most plant species may not be able to migrate fast enough to stay one step ahead of rising temperatures.”
OR in other words, it adds to a growing body of evidence that 0.7 deg/century does not matter a toss to natural systems.
Not migrating YET. So it’s a forgone conclusion that they will , cos we “know” they will, we just can’t find any actual evidence of that YET. In the mean time we have some new spin that they MAY not be able to cope.
I didn’t notice them mentioning a time period. It is not a novel result that trees grow faster in warmer weather. I didn’t see in the press release or the abstract that they were considering land management practices and land use, which would certainly confound any studies of species migration.
Besides, isn’t one of the handwringers for AGW tree growth migration up mountainsides?
“The patterns we were able to see from this massive study are consistent with forests having faster turnover, where young trees tend to be more abundant than adult trees in warm, wet climates. This pattern is what we would expect to see if populations speed up their life cycle in warming climates,” said lead author Kai Zhu, a doctoral student of Clark’s at Duke. “This is a first sign of climate change impacts, before we see large-scale migrations. It gives a very different picture of how trees are responding to climate change.”
WHOA, hold on. You mean plants grow quicker is response to warmth increasing the speed of the chemical processing involved . Wow, Noble candidate, on the way up.
What?! Plants grow better if they get a little more water. Write to the president , we could revolutionise modern agriculture and feed the world !!
So he’s a graduate student who’s learnt that you have to spin any facts into global warming if you want your doctorate and to become an accredited “climate scientist” and to get published.
This man will go far.
It’s almost like trees were some sort of coldblooded life form that can benefit from a bit of extra environmental warmth.
If only we had someway to possibly verify it, like if tree prevalence dropped off as you got closer to polar regions just as happens with known coldblooded species like lizards and beetles.
As a lifelong resident of Pennsylvania, an eastern state, I just take that as a sign of a healthy forest with sufficient resources. You get ten young trees whose combined canopies cover less than a tenth of the area of an old mature tree, thus a healthy competition for survival of the fittest. If the old are more prevalent, if you’d only have one scrawny young tree per one or two old gnarled survivors, I’d wonder why conditions are so poor.
To me it looks like the trees are doing fine and don’t need to migrate elsewhere, but then I won’t lose grant money and a prestigious Phd for saying the truth.
Love the spurious claim about “life cycle”. Kindda sounds like they’re dying off at a younger age after having been burnt out by new faster pace of life imposed by “climate change/distruption/weirdness”.
In fact it appears simply to refer to younger trees growing faster. Astounding.
Call the UNFCC , we’ve found a replace for Patchuri at last.
“The patterns we were able to see from this massive study are consistent with forests having faster turnover”
Spot the weasel words “consistent with”. Red flag no. 1 for masking false attribution claims. Expect to see the word “robust” somewhere in the conclusion section.
Why did it take from 1988 to recent times for researchers to figure this out? Billions of Dollars have been spent on the ‘finest minds’ to find out what is going and yet the story changes………again.
Summary for Policy Makers: “We messed up on a large scale.” “We really don’t know, but we are 97% sure that something bad is happening due to Co2.”
What happened further south in the past? Is co2 in fact a plant killer?
Talk about not being able to see the wood for the trees. Unbelievable garbage.
This shows that species can adapt by staying put.
And this is bad news?
This “study” shows one thing at least; that trees are smarter than these “researchers” are.
Why are they making the possibility that trees grow faster a bad thing? It’s a bad thing for people that hate the timber industry, as faster growth means the time between replant and harvest is shorter, and a faster ROI. This is the type of report you get from anti-capitalists.
Don’t tell http://www.thegreengrok.com. Dr. Chimeides will have a coronary…
But what about the rain? The science is settled and we must act now.
Well, here’s a thought for those “scientists”. Maybe the faster life cycle is due to the increased CO2 (since it is required by the trees), and maybe the lack of movement is due to the fact that there has not been much warming.
Sounds like that study is merely proving the data available. In other words, higher CO2, static temperatures.
Gulp……it’s worse than we thought….forests that were SUPPOSED to live for 1000’s of years are finding their lives cut short due to……climate change.
These immeasurable impacts will manifest in 5 or 6 hundred years SO WE MUST ACT NOW
USA forests survived the Medieval Warm Period. They either moved uphill, downhill, north or south. I really don’t care but they managed. It’s called adaptation, migration and evolution. Did US vegetation ‘feel’ the 0.7C rise in surface temps when winter and summer temps vary much more wildly over 1 year? The 1930s should have wiped them out.