Category: Climate Change

Climate change is super-charging St. Louis wildflowers (Links to an external site)

The wildflowers that bring a burst of color to meadows and forests across St. Louis are blooming later and longer than they did in previous decades, according to a study led by researchers with the Living Earth Collaborative, a signature initiative of the Arts & Sciences Strategic Plan. The study by Missouri Botanical Garden’s Matthew Austin and Ken Olsen, the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology is published in New Phytologist.

Whitney and Anna Harris Conservation Forum examines urban heat islands, their impact and mitigation strategies (Links to an external site)

The Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center at the University of Missouri–St. Louis used its annual Whitney and Anna Harris Conservation Forum last Tuesday night to explore the issue of urban heat islands, their impact and what can be done to mitigate them in an event titled, “It’s Getting Hot in Here: Urban Heat Effects and St. Louis.” LEC post-doc Kaylee Arnold was a featured panel member.

Shifting Climate Zones Pose a Major Threat to Terrestrial Ecosystems (Links to an external site)

New research published in Regional Environmental Change, funded in part by a Living Earth Collaborative seed grant, reveals that climate zone shifts in Kenya between 1980 and 2020 are leading to hotter and drier conditions, threatening ecological diversity and food security. The study found that tropical climate zones expanded, while arid regions grew by over 50,000 square kilometers. This shift, driven by rising temperatures and altered precipitation patterns, significantly impacts agriculture, particularly in regions dependent on rain-fed farming. The findings highlight the urgent need for adaptation strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change on ecosystems and livelihoods in Kenya and similar regions.

TGI-led research finds shifting climate regions leading to hotter, drier conditions across Kenya (Links to an external site)

Research published in Regional Environmental Change has shown that as climate zones shift toward hotter and drier conditions, ecological diversity will decline, posing a major threat to terrestrial ecosystems with far-reaching social and ecological impacts, This work was supported in part by the Taylor Geospatial Institute and a seed research grant from the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis.

Small flowers focus of big climate research at Missouri Botanical Garden (Links to an external site)

The Missouri Botanical Garden is known for its beautiful plants and flowers, but that’s not where you’ll find ecologist Matthew Austin.

Most days, you’ll find the post-doctoral fellow with Washington University’s Living Earth Collaborative combing the stacks, not of a library, but of the garden’s Herbarium, one of the world’s best research resources for all things plants.

No, autumn leaves are not changing color later because of climate change (Links to an external site)

A red maple is fully red. The sun is shining through the leaves.

Many people believe that climate change is pushing back the start of fall leaf color to later in the year. The general thinking is that the warmer conditions anticipated under climate change will mean that trees can “hang on” to their green, energy-producing leaves longer. But scientists do not actually see this happening across North American forests, according to LEC Biodiversity Fellow, Susanne S. Renner, an expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

How birds are adapting to climate crisis (Links to an external site)

A male bay-breasted warbler

Many North American migratory birds are shrinking in size as temperatures have warmed over the past 40 years. But those with very big brains, relative to their body size, did not shrink as much as smaller-brained birds, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis. The study is the first to identify a direct link between cognition and animal response to human-made climate change.

Warmer weather means duller dragonflies (Links to an external site)

LEC post-doc Michael Moore led a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looking at if dragonflies have adapted with climate historically and what is projected to happen with an even warmer climate in the future.

In search of refuge (Links to an external site)

Two building and cars sit next to a forest in fall

With funding support from LEC, researchers look at whether Ozark oases at Tyson Research Center — climate change refugia — could help species persist in spite of rising temperatures.

Human activity imperils one of the Earth’s great survivalists: dragonflies (Links to an external site)

In an article for The Hill, Living Earth Collaborative postdoc Michael Moore highlights the threats facing dragonflies, one of Earth’s oldest and most resilient species. Despite surviving major extinction events and natural predators for over 200 million years, dragonflies are now at risk due to habitat loss, pollution, and climate change caused by human activity. Moore warns that if we fail to act, we risk being responsible for the extinction of a species that has withstood previous global catastrophes.

Mountain high (Links to an external site)

Andean forests have high potential to store carbon under climate change. The study — which draws upon two decades of data from 119 forest-monitoring plots in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina — was produced by an international team of scientists including researchers supported by the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis. The lead author was Alvaro Duque from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín.

Yes, spring flowers are blooming earlier. It might confuse bees. (Links to an external site)

“Climate change is altering when plants are blooming, and it’s disrupting the historic relationships between plants and their pollinators,” said Matthew Austin, an ecologist and biodiversity postdoctoral fellow with the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis. “But we know remarkably little about what effect that has on how plants interact with one another and the evolutionary consequences of altered plant-plant interactions.”

Sicker livestock may increase climate woes (Links to an external site)

Climate change is affecting the spread and severity of infectious diseases around the world. The research, led by Vanessa Ezenwa, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, and funded by the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis, describes how parasites can cause animals to produce more methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

Spotlight on Science: Adam Smith (Links to an external site)

Adam Smith, Assistant Scientist at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development, uses models to predict how climate change will reshape ecosystems. His work has uncovered startling projections, like rare plants shifting thousands of miles or Madagascar’s forests vanishing entirely by 2080. By integrating past and future climate data, Smith’s research helps guide conservation efforts, including seed banking and habitat preservation, while exploring innovative topics like urban expansion driven by self-driving cars and the importance of microrefugia for biodiversity resilience.

Tropical forests suffered near-record tree losses in 2017 (Links to an external site)

An overhead image of rainforest in Brazil showin both healthy intact forests and cleared land

The world’s tropical forests lost roughly 39 million acres of trees last year, an area roughly the size of Bangladesh, according to a report Wednesday by Global Forest Watch that used new satellite data from the University of Maryland. Global Forest Watch is part of the World Resources Institute, an environmental group.