Ecosystems in North America’s Great Plains have shifted hundreds of miles northward in the past 50 years, driven by climate change, wildfire suppression, energy development, land use changes, and urbanization, according to a recent study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The northernmost ecosystem boundary of the Great Plains, for example, has moved more than 365 miles north since 1970, or 8 miles every year. The region’s southernmost ecosystem boundary has shifted 160 miles north, or 4 miles a year.
The study, conducted by scientists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, used bird distribution data as an indicator of shifting ecosystem boundaries. Researchers analyzed 46 years’ worth of data for 400 bird species across a 250-mile-wide transect stretching from Texas to North Dakota. The researchers organized the bird species into groups by body mass and looked for gaps in spatial distribution, allowing them to define the boundaries of various ecosystems. They then tracked how the birds’ distributions changed as a measure of how these ecosystems were shifting.
Read more at Yale Environment 360
Photo Credit: Chris Light via Wikimedia Commons
