BERKELEY, Calif. (KCBS) -- Most of California’s native plant species could disappear from very large areas of the state over the next century if global warming continues at its current pace, according to maps released Tuesday by researchers at UC Berkeley and other institutions.
Some 5,000 plants – about 2/3 of the state’s native species – could be forced to relocate in order to survive, said UC Berkeley biologist David Ackerly.
“We forecast that plants would need to move over 100 miles on average to keep track of this very rapid climate change,” he told KCBS’s George Harris. Wildflowers in particular are very sensitive to drought and prolonged heat, he said.
Seeds carried by birds, animals and winds will ensure the survival of many of the other flowers and trees now associated with the Golden State, but other species may not be able to adapt quickly enough. “The climates where these plants live now literally won’t be there anymore. They’ll be somewhere else,” Ackerly said.
The paper he wrote, published in the journal PloS One, the journal of the Public Library of Science, forecasts that climate change could accelerate ten times as much as it did at the end of the last ice age, making even small efforts to limit greenhouse gases very significant.
“Every step we can take to slow the pace of climate change will give plants and animals more time to hang on and the possibility to adjust,” Ackerly said.
(jro)
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KCBS's George Harris reports
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