As climate and land-use change accelerate, so must efforts to preserve California’s plants

As the IPCC warns that we have only 12 years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly half or risk significantly greater impacts from climate change, University of California, Berkeley, scientists are charting the best course to save California's native plants from these human threats.

"We just have a decade or two given the rapid pace of climate and land-use change," said Brent Mishler, a UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology and director of the University and Jepson Herbaria. "Our opportunities, even 10 years down the line, are way more limited compared to what they are now. What we are going to save, we are going to save quickly. We don't have forever to leisurely conserve California."Graduate student Matthew Kling, Mishler and their UC Berkeley colleagues have created a computer model to prioritize the plants and growing areas needing preservation, linking this for the first time with the areas' suitability for preservation.

The model will allow conservation groups, ranging from state and national parks to the Nature Conservancy, to determine whether land harboring species in need of preservation is already protected, unprotected but salvageable or degraded to the point where saving it would be pointless: necessary triage given limited funds for preservation.

For More: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181119160242.htm

Posted by admin on Nov 20 2018. Filed under Climate change, Forest & Land. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry