In 1917, a German scientist climbed a mountainside in Sweden every day for five years to collect vegetation data.
In 1917, a German scientist climbed a mountainside in Sweden every day for five years to collect vegetation data. Exactly 100 years later, researchers from the University of Guelph returned to the same place and found practically nothing had changed.
With rapid ecological changes happening worldwide, this finding intrigued Dr. Andrew MacDougall, U of G professor in the College of Biological Science, who wondered: Was the unaltered mountainside an exception – or a rule?
In an ambitious study recently published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, MacDougall assembled a team of more than 80 grassland researchers worldwide. They found that grasslands are experiencing sharp increases or declines in plant production (i.e., in their biomass) depending on their location, the climate and local conditions.
In other words, grasslands have not followed uniform rules in response to global climate change. Many places, like the mountainside in Sweden, are stable and resistant to change. But on a world scale, other grasslands are undergoing dramatic changes.
Read more at University of Guelph
Photo Credit: Hans via Pixabay
