[Pollinator] SFGate: Sudden climate change is not just about Eskimos in bikinis

[Jen Marks]

 "When pollinators like bees and hummingbirds disappear from a landscape
that depends on them to carry out its annual renewal, a cascade of ill
effects ripples through the ecosystem. "
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate.
The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/19/INGK0D99PP1.DTL
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, June 19, 2005 (SF Chronicle)
Sudden climate change is not just about Eskimos in bikinis
Chip Ward


   When we hear the term "global warming," we usually imagine collapsing
Antarctic ice shelves, melting Alaskan glaciers, or perhaps starving polar
bears wandering bewildered across an ice-free, alien landscape.
   Warnings about climate change tend to focus on the Earth's polar regions,
in part because they are warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet
and also because the dramatic changes under way there can be easily
captured and conveyed. We may not be able to see the 80 percent decline in
the Antarctic krill population -- the tiny, shrimplike creatures that are
a critical food source for whales, seals, and seabirds -- but we can
easily see satellite photos of state-size chunks of ice shields separating
from the continent. We can grasp the enormity of planetary glacial melting
simply by comparing photos of glaciers taken just a decade apart.
   But as long as we're talking about ice in distant climes, global warming
seems like something that's happening elsewhere and to somebody else -- or
some other set of creatures. So when you hear about global warming, the
odds are good that you never think of the yellow-bellied marmot. Probably,
you've never even heard of the critters, but the big rodents, common not
to the distant Arctic but to Rocky Mountain meadows, have been acting like
so many canaries lately -- coal-mine canaries, that is. They may be the
first among many species in the Lower 48 to die off, thanks to
close-to-home global warming effects that we hear little about. They are
dying of confusion.
   Although the radical break in climate patterns now under way will lead to
rising oceans and expanding deserts, the most insidious changes may be
more subtle -- and as unnoticed as the disappearance of the marmots may
be. The intricate and precisely timed collaborations of plants, animals,
birds and insects, fine-tuned over endless thousands of years of
evolution, is inevitably short-circuited when the weather goes wacky over
periods of time that are the geological equivalent of a wink. When
environmental and biological events that once fit together lose their
synchronicity, the consequence can be extinction.
   Even the Pentagon realizes that, if dependable local weather patterns
become erratic, chaos can ensue as, for instance, crops begin to fail.
Some of the less-adaptable wild creatures, great and small, who share our
American backyards are already coping with the kind of eco-havoc we can as
yet only imagine for ourselves. For them, a more accurate description of
what is happening might be Eco-Topsy-Turvy or Climate Helter-Skelter.
   Take that marmot. The yellow-bellied marmot's hibernation habits are
guided by ancient circadian rhythms that are cued by seasonal changes in
light and temperature. Like their cousin Punxsutawney Phil, marmots awake
from winter hibernation in underground burrows and surface when they sense
the earth is warming.
   In recent years, conservationists report, marmots are emerging from their
holes a month sooner than expected. But if the ground warms before deep
snowpack melts, which is now often the case, emerging marmots cannot get
to food and they starve.
   For the purple larkspur, which shares the marmot's meadow, the problem is
the opposite. When spring temperatures grow warmer ever earlier, snow
cover melts earlier as well and the larkspur, one of the first plants to
bloom in American alpine meadows, puts out vulnerable buds weeks too soon
-- for even if the snow cover has mostly melted, frost remains a serious
threat in early spring and a single cold night will wipe out those tender
buds. No buds, no seeds. No seeds, eventually no larkspurs.
   No larkspurs, no nectar for queen bumblebees, which produce worker bees
for hives, and no larkspur blossoms for hummingbirds. When pollinators
like bees and hummingbirds disappear from a landscape that depends on them
to carry out its annual renewal, a cascade of ill effects ripples through
the ecosystem.

   Changes in snow patterns also present wolves with an unusual challenge.
The reintroduced wolf, that symbol of our determination to restore the
health of ecosystems that long suffered their loss, uses snow as an ally
in chasing down and eating elk. The elk are weakened by starvation in
winter and cannot as easily escape the nimble wolves through dense
snowpack or across slippery ice.
   In Yellowstone this past winter, snow and ice were sparse and the elk
generally got away from the wolves. It wasn't just wolves that went
hungry. Other animals and birds, including endangered grizzly bears,
depend on sharing carcasses the wolves leave behind to make it through the
winter, so they also fared poorly.
   When there is less snowpack to melt and rivers are thin, salmon have less
habitat and less mobility. In addition, salmon spawning cycles are adapted
to the rhythms of local stream-flows as they have been over tens of
thousands of years. Adult salmon return from the ocean to the mouths of
rivers to begin their spawning runs upstream just as conditions for
swimming are optimal. Or should be. When warmer spring temperatures thaw
snowpack too soon, rivers peak earlier and mature salmon arrive too late
to make the journey up shallow rivers depleted by drought (and by what we
draw off to keep lawns and golf greens vibrant). No journey, no spawning,
and soon enough, no salmon.
   As conservation biologists have shown us, salmon are the glue that holds
the food webs and nutrient cycles of Northwest ecosystems together.
Goodbye evolution, hello helter-skelter.
   A report by University of Texas biologist Camille Parmesan and University
of Colorado ecologist Hector Galbraith for the Pew Center for Global
Climate recently assessed 40 scientific studies linking climate change
with observed ecological changes. A growing body of evidence, they found,
shows that sudden climate change is not just about Eskimos in bikinis.
Significant changes are under way even in temperate regions.
   The geographic ranges of many plant and animal species are either
contracting or shifting northward, causing species like the red fox to
compete with the Arctic fox for food and territory. Flowering patterns,
breeding behaviors and the timing of migrations are all undergoing change.
The distribution of plants, insects, animals and even soil bacteria is
shifting rapidly.
   Can plants and creatures adapt fast enough to survive such rapid changes?
Can evolution run on "fast-forward"? If trying to evolve at warp speed
while Mother Nature is having hot flashes isn't enough, birds and animals
in the Lower 48 are also struggling to adapt to such changes within
habitats that have been drastically reduced, fragmented and often
contaminated by human development.
   On the sea, where man-made barriers are fewer, changes have been tracked
and measured that are clearly linked to climate change. In the waters of
Monterey Bay, where the ranges of northern and southern Pacific fish
overlap, for example, scientists have tracked changing species
distribution. Northern species are heading farther north while southern
species have greatly increased their dominance in the bay.
   Typically, Humboldt squid, which until recently ranged from Southern
California to South America, have now been spotted as far north as Alaska.
Ocean studies confirm that species are responding as best they can to the
changes in their historical habitats and food webs. In the ocean, as on
land, when species overlap and invade one another's territories,
ecological relationships between interdependent species are broken and
chaos can follow.
   The ground we walk on is also a habitat that is shaped by climate regimes
and patterns. UC Berkeley Professor John Harte's research shows that,
across the West, sagebrush is replacing mountain meadows because of warmer
temperatures at higher altitudes. Mountain meadows are lush. The litter
from wildflowers -- the leaves, flowers and stems that fall into the soil
each autumn -- is easy for micro-organisms to digest. Sage litter is
thinner. It makes poor soil.
   Humans are not exempt. If ecosystem relationships become disconnected and
ecological processes break down, we will eventually suffer as well. The
fluids that sustain our lives come from watersheds. Our food is a
synthesis of soil, sunlight and rain. We depend on the biological
diversity, ecological processes and powerful global currents of wind and
water that are the operating systems of all life on Earth. Signs that
these operating systems are faltering should be a wake-up call.
   So, put on those Ray-Bans and stand in the purple mountain meadow next to
that yellow-bellied marmot -- the one blinking in the snow-reflected sun.
Face the camera. Say "cheese!" Now that's a shot you can show your
grandchildren when they ask you, "What's a marmot?" or, "What's a meadow?"
   Chip Ward is author of "Hope's Horizon: Three Visions for Healing the
American Land" (Shearwater/Island Press) and is the assistant director of
the Salt Lake City Public Library System. This article first appeared on
tomdispatch.com. Contact us at insight at sfchronicle.com. ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2005 SF Chronicle