As the world heats up and the climate shifts, life will migrate, adapt or go extinct. For decades, scientists have deployed a specific method to predict how a species will fare during this time of great change.
As the world heats up and the climate shifts, life will migrate, adapt or go extinct. For decades, scientists have deployed a specific method to predict how a species will fare during this time of great change. But according to new research, that method might be producing results that are misleading or wrong.
University of Arizona researchers and their team members at the U.S. Forest Service and Brown University found that the method – commonly referred to as space-for-time substitution – failed to accurately predict how a widespread tree of the Western U.S., called the ponderosa pine, has actually responded to the last several decades of warming. This also implies that other research relying on space-for-time substitution may not accurately reflect how species will respond to climate change over the next several decades.
The team collected and measured ponderosa pine tree rings from across the Western U.S. going as far back as 1900 and compared the trees' actual growth to how the model predicted the trees should respond to warming.
Read More: University of Arizona
A view overlooking a forest of ponderosa pine and Jeffrey pine from Verdi Mountain near Truckee in California. (Photo Credit: Daniel Perret)
