• HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Thursday, February 25, 2021
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News

Climate impacts drive east-west divide in forest seed production

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
February 23, 2021
in Science News
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Western forests may be less able to regenerate following large-scale diebacks

IMAGE

Credit: USGS

DURHAM, N.C. — Younger, smaller trees that comprise much of North America’s eastern forests have increased their seed production under climate change, but older, larger trees that dominate forests in much of the West have been less responsive, a new Duke University-led study finds.

Declines in these trees’ seed production, or fecundity, could limit western forests’ ability to regenerate following the large-scale diebacks linked to rising temperatures and intensifying droughts that are now occurring in many states and provinces.

This continental divide, reported for the first time in the new study, “could dramatically alter the composition and structure of 21st century North American forests,” said James S. Clark, Nicholas Distinguished Professor of Environmental Science at Duke, who led the research.

Knowing the contrasting responses occur — and understanding why they happen — will help scientists more accurately predict future changes to North American forests and develop conservation and management strategies to mitigate the changes, he said.

Researchers from 48 institutions collaborated with Clark on the peer-reviewed study, which appears Feb. 23 in Nature Communications.

Fecundity is a measure of trees’ capacity to regenerate after diebacks and other large-scale disturbances by dispersing seeds to habitats where their odds of future survival are more favorable. It’s an essential factor for determining future forest responses to climate change, but like many ecological processes it’s noisy, highly variable and incredible hard to estimate.

Fecundity changes over time, based on changes in a tree’s size, growth rate or access to light, water and other resources, and is driven by two indirect climate impacts — the effects of growth that depend on climate, and the effects of climate that depend on tree size — that currently aren’t accounted for in the models used to predict future change.

“It was the only major demographic process driving forest response to climate change that we lacked field-based estimates on,” Clark said.

To address this problem, he devised new statistical software that allowed him to synthesize decades of raw data on size, growth, canopy spread, and access to resources for nearly 100,000 individual trees at long-term research sites and experimental forests across North America. The unfiltered raw data revealed what previous meta-analyses based on averaged measurements had missed: At the continental scale, fecundity increases as a tree grows larger, up to a point. And then it begins to decline.

“This explains the East-West divide. Most trees in the East are young, growing fast and entering a size class where fecundity increases, so any indirect impact from climate that spurs their growth also increases their seed production,” Clark said. “We see the opposite happening with the older, larger trees in the West. There are small and large trees in both regions, of course, but the regions differ enough in their size structure to respond in different ways.

“Now that we understand, in aggregate, how this all works, the next step is to apply it to individual species or stands and incorporate it into the models we use to predict future forest changes,” he said.

The data used in the study came from trees in the Mast Inference and Prediction (MASTIF) monitoring network, which includes more than 500 long-term field research sites nationwide, including plots that are also part of the National Ecological Observation Network (NEON).

###

Other Duke authors on the study were Christopher L. Kilner, Jordan Luongo, Renata Poulton-Kamakura, Ethan Ready, Chantal D. Reid, C. Lane Scher, William H. Schlesinger, Shubhi Sharma, Samantha Sutton, Jennifer J. Swenson and Margaret Swift.

Funding came from the National Science Foundation, the Belmont Forum, NASA, and the Ministere de l’Enseignement Superieur de la Recherche et de l’Innovation “Make Our Planet Great Again” initiative.

In addition to Clark’s primary faculty appointment at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, he holds a secondary appointment at the Université Grenoble Alpes’ Institute National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement.

CITATION: “Continent-wide Tree Fecundity Driven by Indirect Climate Effects,” J.S. Clark, R. Andrus, M. Aubry-Kientz, Y. Bergeron, M. Bogdziewicz, D.C. Bragg, D. Brockway, N.L. Cleavitt, S. Cohen, B. Courbaud, R. Daley, A.J. Das, M. Dietze, T.J. Fahey, I. Fer, J.F. Franklin, C.A. Gehring, G.S. Gilbert, C.H. Greenberg, Q. Guo, J. Hille Ris Lambers, I. Ibanez, J. Johnstone, C.L. Kilner, J. Knops, W.D. Koenig, G. Kunstler, J.M. LaMontagne, K.L. Legg, J. Luongo , J.A. Lutz, D. Macias, E.J.B. McIntire, Y. Messaoud, C.M. Moore, E. Moran, J.A. Myers, O.B. Myers, C. Nunez, R. Parmenter, S. Pearse, S. Pearson, R. Poulton-Kamakura, E. Ready, M.D. Redmond, C.D. Reid, K.C. Rodman, C.L. Scher, W.H. Schlesinger, A.M. Schwantes, E. Shanahan, S. Sharma, M. Steele, N.L. Stephenson, S. Sutton, J.J. Swenson, M. Swift, T.T. Veblen, A.V. Whipple, T.G. Whitham, A.P. Wion, K. Zhu, R. Zlotin; Feb. 23, 2021, Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20836-3

Media Contact
Timothy Lucas
[email protected]

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20836-3

Tags: BiologyClimate ChangeEcology/EnvironmentForestryTemperature-Dependent Phenomena
Share12Tweet7Share2ShareShareShare1

Related Posts

IMAGE

New radiology research shows promising results for focused ultrasound treatment of Alzheimer’s

February 25, 2021
IMAGE

New ONC, NLM funding supports data exchange and response to COVID-19 pandemic

February 25, 2021

Toronto’s COVID-19 bike lane expansion boosted access to jobs, retail

February 25, 2021

Salk Professors Satchin Panda and Tatyana Sharpee honored with endowed chairs

February 25, 2021

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

POPULAR NEWS

  • IMAGE

    Terahertz accelerates beyond 5G towards 6G

    637 shares
    Share 255 Tweet 159
  • People living with HIV face premature heart disease and barriers to care

    81 shares
    Share 32 Tweet 20
  • Global analysis suggests COVID-19 is seasonal

    37 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 9
  • HIV: an innovative therapeutic breakthrough to optimize the immune system

    35 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Tags

Cell BiologyGeneticsClimate ChangeInfectious/Emerging DiseasesPublic HealthMedicine/HealthcancerBiologyTechnology/Engineering/Computer ScienceEcology/EnvironmentChemistry/Physics/Materials SciencesMaterials

Recent Posts

  • New radiology research shows promising results for focused ultrasound treatment of Alzheimer’s
  • New ONC, NLM funding supports data exchange and response to COVID-19 pandemic
  • Toronto’s COVID-19 bike lane expansion boosted access to jobs, retail
  • Salk Professors Satchin Panda and Tatyana Sharpee honored with endowed chairs
  • Contact Us

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In