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Predicting how forests in the western United States will respond to changing climate
https://carnegiescience.edu/node/2475Predicting how forests in the western United States will respond to changing climate
Monday, February 25, 2019
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As researchers try to anticipate how climate change will affect forest ecosystems, it is crucial to understand the factors that influence how forest habitats change over time—including both environmental conditions and competition for resources. One of the oldest ecological principles asserts that competition between trees will constrain growth under mild conditions and climate will constrain growth under harsh conditions.
…
“This question has moved from the realm of academic theory to a critical practical consideration for land managers, who are trying to determine how the ranges of different tree species will shift,” said Anderegg. “So, we wanted to test the theory across a large scale.”
He and Hille Ris Lambers studied 644 trees across 9 elevation ranges on mountain slopes in Colorado’s San Juan National Forest, Montana’s Glacier National Park, and Washington’s Olympic National Park.
They found that under the harsh conditions such as cold high elevations or dry low elevations, tree growth is constrained more by the climate than by fighting for resources, as predicted. However, under mild conditions, resource competition was not the single limiting factor that they’d predicted it would be.
…
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.13236Monday, February 25, 2019
…
As researchers try to anticipate how climate change will affect forest ecosystems, it is crucial to understand the factors that influence how forest habitats change over time—including both environmental conditions and competition for resources. One of the oldest ecological principles asserts that competition between trees will constrain growth under mild conditions and climate will constrain growth under harsh conditions.
…
“This question has moved from the realm of academic theory to a critical practical consideration for land managers, who are trying to determine how the ranges of different tree species will shift,” said Anderegg. “So, we wanted to test the theory across a large scale.”
He and Hille Ris Lambers studied 644 trees across 9 elevation ranges on mountain slopes in Colorado’s San Juan National Forest, Montana’s Glacier National Park, and Washington’s Olympic National Park.
They found that under the harsh conditions such as cold high elevations or dry low elevations, tree growth is constrained more by the climate than by fighting for resources, as predicted. However, under mild conditions, resource competition was not the single limiting factor that they’d predicted it would be.
…