(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Climate Crisis -- Will You Assist Migration? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-20 Climate chaos is here. So I’m posting a question or topic every week about something every one of us is likely to face, to see if together we can work out the nuts and bolts of ways to survive. Prior questions were: Do You Stay or Do You Go? What Is Your Timeline? What Skill Do You Need To Learn? How Will You Deal With Flooding? What About Potable Water? Got Energy? What Are Your Preparations For A Food Emergency? Do You Have Enough Nutrients? What Are Your Plans For Fire? What Will You Do About Medical Care? What Are Your Plans For Mental Health? Do You Have Community? Will You Kill Invasive Species? What Are You Doing About Information Access? This week’s question is Will You Assist Migration? Why are we talking about migration? As climate change accelerates, average temperatures are climbing all over the globe. Most animals can move, and on land many can move out of an area that is too hot into one that is cooler. Of course, some can’t move very fast or very far, some won’t be able to figure out which way to go because of local topography and microclimates, some can only move up and are running out of elevation, and some are prevented from moving by humans, roads, and ecosystem fragmentation. But even species that can move easily are having difficulty because the plants they depend on cannot move as fast as climate change. Take a look at the current plant hardiness/growing zones (planthardiness.ars.usda.gov). These zones are moving generally north in the northern hemisphere and generally south in the southern hemisphere at faster rates than plants can cover by natural seed dispersal and plant growth. This means that plants that need a hard frost aren’t getting one, plants that use temperature cues are reacting much earlier in the spring and later in the fall, and plants that depend on migrating pollinators are blooming before the pollinators can hatch or arrive. To survive, plants and animals need to be shifting their ranges by 3.25 kilometers per year just to keep up with the increasing temperatures and associated climactic shifts—a speed that native species cannot manage without human help. (Daegan Miller. “Non-native plants and animals expanding ranges 100-times faster than native species, finds new research”. Phys.Org. 19 June, 2024.) Few plants can travel 3.25 km/yr. So what do we do about this problem? We can plant near natives Near natives are native plants from neighboring or close ecosystems that could naturally migrate to your region if climate change was happening at a slower rate. For instance, the California Brittlebrush is native in southern CA but probably able to live farther north because of climate change. Planting it farther north now will provide a home for the more mobile species who depend on it and who already are or soon will be heading north. We might plant non-natives You can plant non-natives from similar zones or from slightly hotter zones in your area. For example, there are Mediterranean climates scattered around the globe, the result of a conjunction of elevation, latitude, nearness to an ocean, and being on the west side of a landmass. What this means is that plants from one Mediterranean climate tend to do just fine in another Mediterranean climate because the conditions in these areas are the same; adaptations formed in one work in others. Similar zones is also why cacao trees (native to central America) grow in parts of Africa, coffee (native to the middle east and Ethiopia) grows in Central America, and sugar cane (native to southeast asia) grows in Brazil. This means a species going extinct in one zone can be planted in a similar zone elsewhere in the world — as a lifeboat, to give it more time, because the new zone is changing temperature slower, etc. You could also plant non-natives from slightly hotter zones, based on temperature/water/sunlight needs instead of on the evolutionary history of the region. These plants could be added to a native ecosystem, to fill gaps caused by climate change in a native ecosystem, or to fill gaps caused by climate change to an ecosystem already damaged by humans or invasives. We might put together whole ecosystems You can do this by migrating plants, animals, mycellium, insects, reptiles, amphibians, fish, bacteria, archaea, lichen etc. from a specific ecosystem to a new location, or by patching together a novel ecosystem from species you choose or have available. Are there problems with doing this? Yes. Any of these species, including near natives, can become invasives when brought into a new ecosystem if not carefully selected for the conditions in the new ecosystem. Patched together ecosystems fail easily by not creating a robust enough food web. Have you ever made a terrarium and watched it die? Take a look at the history of Biosphere 2 to see just how difficult this is to do right. This is why some groups and organizations have been experimenting with assisted migration of trees for a number of years now. It is an on-going experiment. So will you assist species or ecosystems migration? If so, how? 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