Media report on UMaine findings of climatic disequilibrium among flora – B. Seliger, J. Gill, & B. McGill
The Bangor Daily News, Eurekalert and Phys.org picked up a University of Maine news release about a collaborative study which concluded that 447 species of trees and shrubs are growing in less than 50% of their suitable North American ranges. The study, which was published in the Journal of Biogeography, suggests that soils, other plants and animals may be exacerbating the effects of climate change across the continent. “All of this means that when it comes to plants, our predictive tools need to get a lot more sophisticated, if they’re going to be useful for conservation,” said co-investigator and associate professor of paleoecology Jacquelyn Gill.