What Makes an Arctic Plant Predictable?

Presentation Type

Oral and/or Visual Presentation

Presenter Major(s)

Biology

Mentor Information

Robert Hollister, hollistr@gvsu.edu

Department

Biology

Location

Kirkhof Center 2201

Start Date

13-4-2011 11:30 AM

End Date

13-4-2011 12:00 PM

Keywords

Environment, Global Change, Life Science

Abstract

Recent documentation of Climate Change's impacts on arctic ecosystems have demonstrated that the Arctic will react to warming more rapidly and dramatically than other regions. As arctic plants respond to Climate Change, shifts in their phenology, growth, and reproduction will impact several major processes. Thus, predicting arctic plant responses to warming is critical to understanding how local and global systems will respond to climate change. Previous work has shown that growth and reproductive traits of some plants can be predicted using temperature and other abiotic factors. This study investigated whether plants' morphology or other properties could explain why some species respond to these abiotic factors while others do not. Preliminary analysis suggests that soil temperature is the best predictor of the majority of growth and reproductive traits across growth forms, indicating a common response to this environmental factor despite species' morphological differences.

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Apr 13th, 11:30 AM Apr 13th, 12:00 PM

What Makes an Arctic Plant Predictable?

Kirkhof Center 2201

Recent documentation of Climate Change's impacts on arctic ecosystems have demonstrated that the Arctic will react to warming more rapidly and dramatically than other regions. As arctic plants respond to Climate Change, shifts in their phenology, growth, and reproduction will impact several major processes. Thus, predicting arctic plant responses to warming is critical to understanding how local and global systems will respond to climate change. Previous work has shown that growth and reproductive traits of some plants can be predicted using temperature and other abiotic factors. This study investigated whether plants' morphology or other properties could explain why some species respond to these abiotic factors while others do not. Preliminary analysis suggests that soil temperature is the best predictor of the majority of growth and reproductive traits across growth forms, indicating a common response to this environmental factor despite species' morphological differences.