| Abstract Detail
Biogeography Kornfeind, Jason [1], Yates, Emily [2], Vitt, Pati [3]. Assessing Range Shifts of Rare Grassland Species in Response to Climate Change. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), grasslands in North America may experience shifts in species composition (IPCC, 1998), citing evidence that rising CO2 could contribute to species change by altering seedling survival rates during drought. A common theme is that species ranges will generally shift poleward, providing their ability to shift isn’t disrupted by barriers such as human developments. Endangered plant species may experience great difficulty in adapting to climate change, and having small, highly fragmented populations shifts in distribution may prove problematic. To test this idea, we used locality data obtained from NatureServe to model species range shifts for 17 rare and endangered plant species with primarily mid-western distributions. In addition, we modeled the predicted range of Andropogon gerardii, a common keystone species of tallgrass prairies. We tested two species distribution models, MaxEnt and DivaGIS, for their ability to predict current distributions using presence-only data of highly charismatic plant species with well-known distributions. MaxEnt outperformed DivaGIS in this regard. We also modeled potential range shifts under moderate increases of CO2, and observed a north-eastern shift in the potential future range of our study species. Given that range shifts will occur with changing climate and rare and endangered plant species are likely to have difficulty migrating under rapid climate change, seed banking efforts, such as those undertaken by the Millennium Seed Bank – Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, may provide the propagules necessary for potential assisted migration projects in the future.
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1 - Lake Forest College, Biology, 555 N. Sheridan Road, Box 173, Lake Forest, IL, 60045, USA
2 - Chicago Botanic Garden, Institute for Plant Conservation and Biology, 1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe, IL, 60022, USA
3 - Institute for Plant Conservation, Chicago Botanic Garden, 1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe, Illinois, 60022, USA
Keywords:
climate change
species distribution models
range shifts
Plant conservation
seed banking.
Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for Topics
Session: CP01
Location: Boulevard B/Hilton
Date: Monday, July 9th, 2007
Time: 8:00 AM
Number: CP01001
Abstract ID:2328 |
