[PCA] ARTICLE: Seed dispersal is plummeting just when plants need to move most

[Carr, Amanda (Mandie)]

From: Anthropocene Magazine
Title: Seed dispersal is plummeting just when plants need to move most
By: Warren Cornwall
Date: February 2, 2022

Introduction:
When it comes to keeping pace with a changing climate, plants face a particular challenge. They are quite literally rooted in place.

Now their ability to move to cooler areas as places heat up is being further imperiled by the loss of animals on which plants often hitch a ride. Through a clever marriage of computing power and hundreds of detailed field studies, scientists have developed a tool for predicting how quickly plants need to migrate to remain in a climatic zone where they can survive, and how much that migration is slowed by the loss of animals that act as shuttles by transmitting seeds in their feces.

The resulting picture isn't pretty. The migratory potential for plants has already been cut by more than half on average, thanks to loss of species in recent centuries, the researchers found. And future extinctions could slow plants still further.

Full Article: https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2022/02/seed-dispersal-is-plummeting-just-when-plants-need-to-move-most
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