In Michigan, sugar maple tree populations are rising and eastern redbud trees are making their way north while coniferous trees, like the black spruce, continue to decline.
Conservationists suspect there are a multitude of causes for this changing composition, including climate warming, and the authors of a new study say it’s just shown a direct link between changing plant communities and heat.
Kara Dobson at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Global Change Biology was one of the authors on this study. She said previous studies examining the link between climate warming and the effects on species were only observational…