How Does Climate Change Affects Biodiversity Lowland Tropical Forests

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• Overview
• Forest Growth and Productivity
• Disturbances
  

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Overview

In the United States, forests occupy approximately 740 meg acres, virtually 1 third of the country'due south total country area.^[ii] America's forests provide many benefits and services to society, including clean h2o and air, recreation, wildlife habitat, carbon storage, climate regulation, and a diversity of forest products.^[ii] Climate influences the construction and office of forest ecosystems and plays an essential office in forest health. A changing climate may worsen many of the threats to forests, such as pest outbreaks, fires, human evolution, and drought.

Extent and blazon of forest cover in the United states of america. View larger: U.Due south. Woods Service, National Atlas. Climate changes direct and indirectly bear upon the growth and productivity of forests through changes in temperature, rainfall, weather condition, and other factors. In improver, elevated levels of carbon dioxide accept an effect on plant growth. These changes influence complex forest ecosystems in many means.

In conjunction with the projected impacts of climate change, forests face impacts from country development, suppression of natural periodic forest fires, and air pollution. Although it is hard to split up the effects of these different factors, the combined impact is already leading to changes in our forests. As these changes are likely to continue in the decades ahead, some of the valuable goods and services provided past forests may be compromised. To learn more about examples of projected regional changes in forests, encounter the Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, and Alaska regional impacts pages.

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Impacts on Woods Growth and Productivity

Many aspects related to climatic change are probable to affect forest growth and productivity. Three examples are described below: increases in temperature, changes in precipitation, and increases in carbon dioxide (CO_two).

• Warming temperatures generally increase the length of the growing flavor. Information technology also shifts the geographic ranges of some tree species. Habitats of some types of copse are likely to motion north or to higher altitudes. Other species will be at risk locally or regionally if conditions in their current geographic ranges are no longer suitable.^[2] For example, species that currently be only on mountaintops in some regions may dice out as the climate warms since they cannot shift to a college altitude.
• Climate change will likely increase the chance of drought in some areas and the risk of extreme precipitation and flooding in others. Increased temperatures modify the timing of snowmelt, affecting the seasonal availability of h2o. Although many trees are resilient to some caste of drought, increases in temperature could make future droughts more damaging than those experienced in the past. In addition, drought increases wildfire risk, since dry out trees and shrubs provide fuel to fires. Drought also reduces trees' ability to produce sap, which protects them from subversive insects such every bit pine beetles.^[5]
• Carbon dioxide is required for photosynthesis, the process by which green plants apply sunlight to grow. Given sufficient water and nutrients, increases in atmospheric CO₂ may enable trees to be more productive, which may change the distribution of tree species. Growth will be highest in nutrient-rich soils with no h2o limitation, and will decrease with decreasing fertility and water supply.^[ii]

Projected shifts in forest types. The maps show recent and projected forest types. Major changes are projected for many regions. For example, in the Northeast, under a lower emissions scenario, the currently dominant maple-beech-birch forest type (ruddy shading) is projected to be displaced past the oak-hickory forest type in a warmer future. Source: USGCRP (2009)

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Impacts of Disturbances

Climate change could alter the frequency and intensity of forest disturbances such every bit insect outbreaks, invasive species, wildfires, and storms. These disturbances tin reduce woods productivity and change the distribution of tree species. In some cases, forests can recover from a disturbance. In other cases, existing species may shift their range or die out. In these cases, the new species of vegetation that colonize the area create a new type of forest.

• The brown and crimson trees in this picture have been infested by mountain pine beetles nearly Winter Park, Colorado in May 2007. Source: CCSP (2008) Insect outbreaks ofttimes defoliate, weaken, and impale copse. For example, past 2007, pine beetles had damaged more than than  650,000 acres of forest in Colorado and spruce beetles had damaged more than three.seven million acres in southern Alaska and western Canada.^[2] The hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive species that is sensitive to cold weather and destroys Eastern hemlock, will likely extend its habitat due north as the climate warms.^[6] A lack of natural controls, such as predators or pathogens, likewise equally inadequate defenses in trees, tin allow insects to spread. Climate modify could contribute to an increment in the severity of futurity insect outbreaks. Rising temperatures may enable some insect species to develop faster, alter their seasonal life cycles, and aggrandize their ranges northward. Invasive found species can displace important native vegetation considering the invasive species often lack natural predators. Climate change could benefit invasive plants that are more tolerant the environmental conditions resulting from climate alter than are native plants.^{[ii] [five]}
• In 2011, wildfires consumed more than 8 million acres of forest in the U.S. (an expanse roughly the size of Maryland), causing 15 deaths and more than $1.9 billion in damages. Warm temperatures and drought conditions during the early summertime contributed to this event.^[three] Climatic change is projected to increase the extent, intensity, and frequency of wildfires in certain areas of the country. Warmer spring and summer temperatures, coupled with decreases in water availability, dry out out woody materials in forests and increment the risk of wildfire. Fires tin also contribute to climate change, since they tin can cause rapid, large releases of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.^[2]

This figure shows annual wildfire-burned surface area (in millions of acres) from 1983 to 2015.  (The two lines represent ii dissimilar reporting systems, shown for comparison).  The extent of expanse burned by wildfires each year appears to have increased since the 1980s. According to National Interagency Fire Center data, of the 10 years with the largest acreage burned, ix accept occurred since 2000, including the pinnacle year in 2015. This flow coincides with many of the warmest years on record nationwide.  Source: Climate Change Indicators in the United States

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• Hurricanes, ice storms, and wind storms tin cause damage to forests. Hurricanes Rita and Katrina in 2005 damaged a full of 5,500 acres of forest. The amount of carbon released by these copse every bit they decay is roughly equivalent to the net corporeality of carbon sequestered by all U.Southward. forests in a single twelvemonth.^[two]

Case Written report: Effects of Climate change on Rocky Mountain National Park Forests

• Changes in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado demonstrate the impacts that many forests are experiencing or may experience in the futurity.
• Summertime temperatures have been increasing in the park, recent beetle outbreaks take been especially astringent, snowpack has been melting earlier, and a nearby glacier has shrunk.
• Park managers conceptualize boosted warming, reductions in snowpack, shifts in habitats to higher elevations, and losses of some sensitive species.
• The National Park Service is exploring ways to manage fire risks and minimize the impacts from invasive species.^[four]

Disturbances can collaborate with i some other, or with changes in temperature and precipitation, to increment risks to forests. For instance, drought can weaken trees and make a forest more susceptible to wildfire or insect outbreaks. Similarly, wildfire can make a forest more than vulnerable to pests.^{[ii] [3]} The combination of drought and outbreaks of beetles has damaged piñon pine forests in the Southwest.

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References

1. U.S. Wood Service (undated). USDA Wood Service: An Overview.

ii. CCSP (2008). The Furnishings of Climatic change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water Resources, and Biodiversity in the The states. Chapter iii: State Resources: Wood and Arid Lands. A Report by the U.S. Climatic change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Enquiry. Backlund, P. , A. Janetos, D. Schimel, J. Hatfield, 1000. Boote, P. Fay, L. Hahn, C. Izaurralde, B.A. Kimball, T. Mader, J. Morgan, D. Ort, W. Polley, A. Thomson, D. Wolfe, M. Ryan, S. Archer, R. Birdsey, C. Dahm, L. Heath, J. Hicke, D. Hollinger, T. Huxman, One thousand. Okin, R. Oren, J. Randerson, W. Schlesinger, D. Lettenmaier, D. Major, Fifty. Poff, S. Running, L. Hansen, D. Inouye, B.P. Kelly, L Meyerson, B. Peterson, and R. Shaw. U.S. Ecology Protection Bureau, Washington, DC, Us.

three. USGCRP (2014). Groffman, P. M., P. Kareiva, S. Carter, North. B. Grimm, J. Lawler, M. Mack, V. Matzek, and H. Tallis, 2014: Ch. 8: Ecosystems, Biodiversity, and Ecosystem Services. Climate change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment, J. One thousand. Melillo, Terese (T.C.) Richmond, and One thousand. W. Yohe, Eds., U.S. Global Alter Research Plan, 195-219. doi:10.7930/J0TD9V7H.

4. NPS (2008). Climate change in Rocky Mount National Park: Preservation in the Face of Uncertainty . National Park Service, U.South. Department of the Interior.

5. USGCRP (2009). Global Climate change Impacts in the United states. "Climate change Impacts by Sectors: Ecosystems." Karl, T.R., J.M. Melillo, and T.C. Peterson (eds.). United States Global Change Research Plan. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, United states.

six. USGCRP (2014). Horton, R., G. Yohe, W. Easterling, R. Kates, M. Ruth, E. Sussman, A. Whelchel, D. Wolfe, and F. Lipschultz, 2014: Ch. sixteen: Northeast. Climatic change Impacts in the United States: The 3rd National Climate Cess , J. M. Melillo, Terese (T.C.) Richmond, and M. W. Yohe, Eds., U.South. Global Change Research Plan, 16-1-nn.

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Source: https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climate-impacts/climate-impacts-forests_.html

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