[Pollinator] Troubled ecosystem?: Smokies may feel heat of global warming

Mon Apr 9 12:23:10 PDT 2007

    Troubled ecosystem?: Smokies may feel heat of global warming

(javascript:NewWindow(600,400,'/apps/pbcs.dll/misc?url=/templates/zoom.pbs&Site=MT&Date=20070408&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=704080310&Ref=AR');) Charles 
Wilder/Discover Life in America
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.

By Mark Boxley
of the Daily Times Staff

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.

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.

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.

"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."

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.

"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.

"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."

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.

"Yeah, I think we already have some clear indications that something is 
different," she said.

"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.

"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.

But the changes in the Park aren't as obvious as, say, acres of trees being 
replaced by shrubbery.

"No, it's subtle," Finley said. "And I think that's why it's difficult for 
people to understand or accept.

"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.

"At this point, we haven't seen an observed ecosystem-level change of any 
sort, not even a population level change."

But give the climate change problem a few years, like maybe 10 or 15, and 
then the story may be different, she said.

"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."

Rapid change
Scientific data are usually things that can be interpreted differently 
depending on the person looking at the figures. Climate change is certainly no 
different.

But when it comes to climate modeling for the southeast United States, the 
consensus seems to point to higher temperatures through the year 2100.

"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.

"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;

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.

"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.

"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."

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Pollination in danger
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.

"When a pollinator goes locally extinct, the plants that depend on that 
pollinator, they're doomed," Langdon said.

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.

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.

"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."

Last modified: April 08. 2007 12:58AM 

Laurie Davies Adams
Executive Director
Coevolution Institute
423 Washington St. 5th
San Francisco, CA 94111
415 362 1137
LDA at coevolution.org
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Bee Ready for National Pollinator Week:  June 24-30, 2007.  Contact us 
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