While warming is pushing some European vegetation north, toward cooler weather, a new study finds that for many forest plants, there is a much greater pull westward.
While warming is pushing some European vegetation north, toward cooler weather, a new study finds that for many forest plants, there is a much greater pull westward. Researchers say these plants are chasing down nitrogen, a key nutrient supplied by pollution in Western Europe.
For the study, researchers tracked 266 forest plants over several decades, finding that many plants found in Eastern Europe — such as tufted hair grass and seedlings of silver fir, hornbeam, and sycamore — are migrating west, where cars, power plants, and factories are producing huge sums of nitrogen dioxide.
For some plants the shift is rapid — wood sorrel is moving west at a rate of around 3 miles a year. And nitrogen-loving plants are often displacing native vegetation.
Read more at: Yale Environment 360
Wood sorrel is moving westward at a rate of three miles a year. (Photo Credit: Petr Harant)
