Natural History Wanderings

Public Affairs and University of Michigan reports

New research studied the rate of response to climate change in California grasslands by using combined long-term datasets from sites like this one in Swanton, California, which has been monitored by UC Santa Cruz scientists since 1999.

Although all ecosystems are affected by a changing climate, the impacts can take a while to appear. Changes in forest biodiversity, for example, are known to lag behind changes in a habitat’s temperature and precipitation. Changes in forest biodiversity, for example, are known to lag behind changes in a habitat’s temperature and precipitation.

Grasslands, on the other hand, are responding to climate change almost in real time, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. Put another way, forests accumulate climate debt, while grasslands are paying as they go, say the study’s authors.

Read more at  Grasslands live in the climate change fast lane