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<TD class=headlineTopStory>Troubled ecosystem?: Smokies may feel heat of global warming<BR></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></DIV>
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<TD class=PhotoCutline><A href="javascript:NewWindow(600,400,'/apps/pbcs.dll/misc?url=/templates/zoom.pbs&Site=MT&Date=20070408&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=704080310&Ref=AR');"><IMG alt="Click here to zoom..." src="http://mtimg.sv.publicus.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=MT&Date=20070408&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=704080310&Ref=AR&maxw=200" border=0><BR clear=all></A>
<DIV class=photoCredit align=right><B>Charles Wilder/Discover Life in America</B></DIV>
<DIV class=photoCutline align=left>The flower of “Rugelia,” which is in the Aster family, is the only member of its genus. Its entire world range is within Great Smoky Mountains National Park at high elevations.</DIV><BR>
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<DIV><SPAN class=StoryText>By Mark Boxley<BR></SPAN><SPAN class=StoryText>of the Daily Times Staff</SPAN><BR><BR><BR><SPAN class=StoryText>Climate conditions in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park have never been something stable enough to make a safe bet on. But things appear to be on the verge of a pretty serious change, one that could alter the Park's ecosystem forever.<BR><BR>Think of the ecosystem in the Smokies as a pyramid where animals, plants and insects that need warmer temperatures live in low elevations at the bottom, and organisms that need colder temperatures live higher up until you reach the top.<BR><BR>If temperatures rise in the Park — and, according to Keith Langdon, inventory and monitoring coordinator with the Smokies, many scientific models indicate they likely will in the next few decades — the living things at the bottom could, in theory, move up the mountain according to their needs. Trees, animals and insects at the top, though, don't have the same options, and that's a big problem.<BR><BR>"As you go uphill, as you go towards Clingman's Dome, you find fewer species per same unit of area," Langdon said. "When you get near the top, most of the species you find will be endemics — that is, species with a very small range."<BR><BR>One of those would be the Frasier Fir tree, &quot;which is quite rare outside of the park,&quot; he said. "Three quarters of all its range is in the park.<BR><BR>"One of the worries that the Park has is that these endemics which are clustered and reefed around the summits of our higher slopes, whether they will be quote-un-quote, squeezed off the top of the mountains," he said. "And we're worried about that.<BR><BR>"We are presuming, maybe incorrectly, that things at lower elevations might be able to migrate up slope," he said. "We don't know that's true. But we know there's no place for the ones on the very summit to migrate to."<BR><BR>There isn't any real hard data showing an amount of change in the Smokies caused by climate change that most untrained eyes can see. But changes are there, said GSMNP Chief of Resource Management and Science Nancy Finley.<BR><BR>"Yeah, I think we already have some clear indications that something is different," she said.<BR><BR>"We have observed both a shift in some species that were never as far north latitude-wise in the Smokies, in the Park," she said. "And we have seen species that were never as high in elevation as they were before.<BR><BR>"In other words, if you hadn't seen something for years and you knew that their northern-most extended range was Georgia, and all of a sudden you're seeing them in the Smokies, there's something going on there," she said.<BR><BR>But the changes in the Park aren't as obvious as, say, acres of trees being replaced by shrubbery.<BR><BR>"No, it's subtle," Finley said. "And I think that's why it's difficult for people to understand or accept.<BR><BR>"It's not like you see a full-scale landscape change at this point," she continued. "We're seeing a plant or a flower or a tree that you wouldn't ordinarily have seen.<BR><BR>"At this point, we haven't seen an observed ecosystem-level change of any sort, not even a population level change."<BR><BR>But give the climate change problem a few years, like maybe 10 or 15, and then the story may be different, she said.<BR><BR>"I think you could potentially see a change in landscape," Finley said. "Whether that's good, bad or indifferent is probably in the eyes of the beholder. But it's clearly not what it was supposed to be."<BR><BR><B>Rapid change</B><BR>Scientific data are usually things that can be interpreted differently depending on the person looking at the figures. Climate change is certainly no different.<BR><BR>But when it comes to climate modeling for the southeast United States, the consensus seems to point to higher temperatures through the year 2100.<BR><BR>"When you look at the computer model simulations that have been run for the rest of the century, I've seen three or four different ones, and they all call for climate change," Langdon said. "There would be an impact to the park.<BR><BR>"Let me hasten to add, as they say, that the climate has never been stable — it's always changing," he said. "We've experienced warm temperatures before.&quot;<BR><BR>The problem that seems to be approaching the Park today is not so much the possibility of increased temperatures, but the rapidity of the change — a couple decades instead of a few centuries, Langdon said.<BR><BR>"I think some of the concerns I've heard expressed professionally is that this change may occur very rapidly," he said. "Much more rapidly than species can accommodate.<BR><BR>"So if (the species) need to migrate up slope a half mile to a different climate, they can do that over a few hundred years," he added. "They may not be able to do that over a few tens of years."<BR><BR></DIV>
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<DIV><BR clear=all><B>Pollination in danger</B><BR>For trees and other plants that rely on an outside force to help during the pollination period, climate change trouble could come in the form of something as simple as an insect dying off or migrating due to a temperature increase. And that is big trouble for the area plants.<BR><BR>"When a pollinator goes locally extinct, the plants that depend on that pollinator, they're doomed," Langdon said.<BR><BR>There are, and probably always will be, experts and lay people who disagree with the assertion that climate change is coming and that it could mean drastic changes for the Smokies over the next 20 years of so. But Park officials are looking at the data and are preparing for the worst, in hopes of getting out in front of the problem before irreparable damage is inflicted upon the Smokies.<BR><BR>Ecosystem change due to climate change in the Smokies is not a certainty, Langdon said, but the data certainly seems to be pointing in that direction.<BR><BR>"Nothing's ever 100 percent, nor should it be, but from what I've seen the majority of the models predict temperature increase for the southeast states for the rest of the century."<BR><BR></DIV></SPAN>
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<DIV class=PhotoCutline align=left>Last modified: April 08. 2007 12:58AM </DIV>
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<DIV class=PhotoCutline align=left>All materials Copyright © 2006 Horvitz Newspapers.</DIV>
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<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#004000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="12">Laurie Davies Adams<BR>Executive Director<BR>Coevolution Institute<BR>423 Washington St. 5th<BR>San Francisco, CA 94111<BR>415 362 1137<BR>LDA@coevolution.org<BR><A title=http://www.coevolution.org/ href="http://www.coevolution.org/">http://www.coevolution.org/</A></FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#004000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="12"><BR><A title=http://www.pollinator.org/ href="http://www.pollinator.org/">http://www.pollinator.org/</A></FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#004000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="12"><BR><A title=http://www.nappc.org/ href="http://www.nappc.org/">http://www.nappc.org/</A></FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#004000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="12"><BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#000000 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">Bee Ready for National Pollinator Week: June 24-30, 2007. Contact us <BR>for more information at www.pollinator.org </FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#004000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="12"><BR><BR><B><I>Our future flies on the wings of pollinators.</B></I></FONT></DIV><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">See what's free at <A title="http://www.aol.com?ncid=AOLAOF00020000000503" href="http://www.aol.com?ncid=AOLAOF00020000000503" target="_blank">AOL.com</A>. </FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>