It's Sunday Night

March 11, 2017
By John Meyers

Duluth, Minn. — Many trees (click here) common in forests across the eastern U.S., including Minnesota and Wisconsin, won’t be able to keep up with the current pace of climate change, according to a new study by the Woods Hole Research Center.

The study echoes the findings of other, recent scientific research that shows some northern tree species simply won’t adapt fast enough to climate change that scientists say already is occurring.

The most recent study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, looked at 40 different eastern U.S. forest species and found balsam fir, quaking aspen and red spruce among the most vulnerable species to warming temperatures.

The trees will begin to fail in warmer climates in many areas and won’t keep up with changes without human intervention, according to the study’s conclusions.

“Trees, after all, cannot walk,” said Woods Hole scientist Brendan Rogers, the study’s lead author, in a statement with the study’s release. “They must disperse seeds that, in turn, establish, grow and reproduce. The pace of climate change threatens to rapidly overtake this migration, and landscapes fragmented by humans present even more challenges.”...