Herself’s Houston Garden

The world is a cooler, wetter place because of flowering plants, according to new climate simulation results published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The effect is especially pronounced in the Amazon basin, where replacing flowering plants with non–flowering varieties would result in an 80 percent decrease in the area covered by ever–wet rainforest.

The simulations demonstrate the importance of flowering–plant physiology to climate regulation in ever–wet rainforest, regions where the dry season is short or non–existent, and where biodiversity is greatest.

“The vein density of leaves within the flowering plants is much, much higher than all other plants,” said the study’s lead author, C. Kevin Boyce, Associate Professor in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. “That actually matters physiologically for both taking in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for photosynthesis and also the loss of water, which is transpiration. The two necessarily go together. You can’t take in CO2 without losing water.”

This higher vein density in the leaves means that flowering plants are highly efficient at transpiring water from the soil back into the sky, where it can return to Earth as rain.

“That whole recycling process is dependent upon transpiration, and transpiration would have been much, much lower in the absence of flowering plants,” Boyce said. “We can know that because no leaves throughout the fossil record approach the vein densities seen in flowering plant leaves.”

For most of biological history there were no flowering plants—known scientifically as angiosperms. They evolved about 120 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period, and took another 20 million years to become prevalent. Flowering species were latecomers to the world of vascular plants, a group that includes ferns, club mosses and confers. But angiosperms now enjoy a position of world domination among plants.

“They’re basically everywhere and everything, unless you’re talking about high altitudes and very high latitudes,” Boyce said.

Dinosaurs walked the Earth when flowering plants evolved, and various studies have attempted to link the dinosaurs’ extinction or at least their evolutionary paths to flowering plant evolution. “Those efforts are always very fuzzy, and none have gained much traction,” Boyce said.

Boyce and Lee are, nevertheless, working toward simulating the climatic impact of flowering plant evolution in the prehistoric world. But simulating the Cretaceous Earth would be a complex undertaking because the planet was warmer, the continents sat in different alignments and carbon– dioxide concentrations were different.

“The world now is really very different from the world 120 million years ago,” Boyce said. Read more

Read the paper
An exceptional role for flowering plant physiology in the expansion of tropical rainforests and biodiversity

The Great Backyard Bird Count

New York, NY and Ithaca, NY—Bird watchers coast to coast are invited to take part in the 13th annual Great Backyard Bird Count, Friday, February 12, through Monday, February 15, 2010. Participants in the free event will join tens of thousands of volunteers of all levels of birding experience to count birds in their own backyards, local parks or wildlife refuges.

Each checklist submitted by these “citizen scientists” helps researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society learn more about how the birds are doing—and how to protect them. Last year, participants turned in more than 93,600 checklists online, creating the continent’s largest instantaneous snapshot of bird populations ever recorded.

“Taking part in the Great Backyard Bird Count is a great way to get outside with family and friends, have fun, and help birds—all at the same time. Anyone who can identify even a few species can provide important information that enables scientists to learn more about how the environment is changing and how that affects our conservation priorities,” said Audubon Education Vice President, Judy Braus. “Everyone who participates in the GBBC—families, teachers, and young people—will get a chance to hone their observation skills, learn more about birds, and make a great contribution to the future!”

GirlWindow_TerieRawn_NY09_web.jpgAnyone can take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count, from novice bird watchers to experts. Participants count birds for as little as 15 minutes (or as long as they wish) on one or more days of the event and report their sightings online at www.birdcount.org. One 2009 participant said, “Thank you for the opportunity to participate in citizen science. I have had my eyes opened to a whole new interest and I love it!”

It’s not quite a witness protection program, it’s more of a hide from the climate program. Botanists are collecting seed from several native plants, believed to be endangered by shifting climates and relocating them to more favorable climates.

Despite the current hysteria the climate is always changing and the evidence is scant that disaster is impending. Also plants have been evolving for millions of years, if we give evolution a crutch what will the plants lose? Will they become, like corn, totally dependent on their human keepers?

That said I’m a big fan of saving seeds and plants for future generations that might not survive on their own. And plants not transported on their own to better climates are likely to move themselves there sooner or later so it’s unlikely great harm will be done. But remember, move the plants, and the insects and animals who use those plants will move with them.

If you are in any gardening organization you are aware of the Millennium Seed Bank and I hope you are contributing seeds. If you are not informed about the Millennium Seed Bank plan on attending the lecture at Houston Garden Federation Nov 13th 930 am for a talk on the Seed Bank.

Local imperiled plant information:
Preserving Imperiled Plants (pdf) Lists 24 native plants in need of help
Mercer Tip Sheet – Saving Imperiled Plants – Plant preservation for gardeners (pdf)
Center for plant conservation

More information:
Managed Relocation
A Hunt for Seeds to Save Species, Perhaps by Helping Them Move
As Climate Warms, Species May Need to Migrate or Perish
National Center for Genetic Resources Foundation
Kew Millennium Seed Bank