Natural History Wanderings

Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity report

To contribute to effective biodiversity conservation under climate change, the University of California, Berkeley, has developed the new spatial tool Seeds of Change to help parks and protected areas in California select plant seeds for resilience to climate change. The tool is at:

https://bnhm-shiny.berkeley.edu/seeds-of-change

Agricultural expansion, livestock grazing, urbanization, and other human actions have degraded or eliminated natural vegetation in ecosystems around the world. To restore ecosystems, resource managers of national parks and other protected areas raise native plants in nurseries and re-plant. Human-caused climate change, however, has been altering and geographically shifting areas of suitable habitat. So, restored vegetation may not be adapted to hotter or drier climates in the future.

On the Seeds of Change web page, users can type in the scientific name of a plant species in California, specify key species parameters and climate change scenarios, and click on the map to identify places to collect seeds to plant at that site or places to plant with seeds from that site. Users can export a geographic information system (GIS) file of the results.

Read more : A Climate Change Tool to Select Plant Seeds for Resilience in California | Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity