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Grasslands live in the climate change fast lane
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A hillside painted by the diversity of native forbs in Walker Canyon, California. This diversity, however, can shift rapidly under climate change, according to new research. Image credit: Joan Dudney
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The impacts of climate change can take varying degrees of time to show up in ecosystems but, in grasslands, the response to climate change is apparent almost in real-time, according to new research by the University of Michigan. In other words, forests accumulate climate debt while grasslands are paying as they go, said the study’s lead authors, University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) Associate Professor Kai Zhu and Yiluan Song, a postdoctoral fellow in the Michigan Institute for Data and AI in Society affiliated with the Institute for Global Change Biology in SEAS.
Read the full press release on the Michigan News website.
Study: Rapid shifts in grassland communities driven by climate change (DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02552-z)