DISSERTATION RESEARCH: How will eco-evolutionary dynamics contribute to the range shifts of plants under climate change?

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If climate has a large effect on natural communities, climate change should result in the loss of cold-adapted species at the expense of warm-adapted species in local communities. These predictable results do not always occur, however. Some communities do not change in response to climate warming. This project will compare historical data from two Pacific Northwest National Parks with current surveys to determine why some plant communities resist the effects of climate change while others do not. The project will contribute to our understanding of the consequences of climate change and communicate this information to National Park Service and other resource managers in the Pacific Northwest. Student training will strengthen the scientific workforce.This project will make progress on the problem of predicting change in plant communities with climate change given apparent stasis, despite the inherent challenges of differentiating drivers with similar expected outcomes. The project will determine how strongly climate influences plant communities in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. Hypotheses on relations of community composition and bioclimatic variables will be tested using resurvey data sets of plant community composition originally collected over 30 years ago in two National Parks (North Cascades National Park and Mount Rainier National Park), newly developed joint species distribution models, and high resolution climate data. Analyses of historical and resurvey data and, separately, seeding experiments will be used to assess whether trends of change indicate resilience or sensitivity to climate change. The project will develop strategies in collaboration with the National Park Service to incorporate this knowledge into long-term planning for resource managers. Training of future scientists will occur at graduate and undergraduate levels.