How climate change will alter wildflowers

How climate change will alter wildflowers Today’s Video of the Day comes from the University of Washington and features a look at how climate change is already impacting wildflowers.

After an unusually warm and dry summer in 2015, researchers noticed that wildflowers on Mount Rainier in Washington began blooming at different times.

Instead of flowering weeks apart, the wildflowers starting blooming simultaneously, which impacts the entire ecosystem of pollinators and animals.

Though many of the same species can still be found peppering the reserve’s forested hillsides and shady glades, climate change is shifting when they bloom. Researchers in St. Louis are using the once-forgotten data as a springboard to explore how climate change has reshaped this ecosystem over the past 80 years — and how it could affect the survival of native plants in the future. How climate change will alter wildflowers as shown above in the video will show you the beautiful colors and impact the climate takes on the blooming wild flowers.

Plants and animals use temperature and other environmental cues like a calendar to decide when to migrate, breed or emerge from their winter dens.

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By Rory Arnold, Earth.com Staff Writer

Video Credit: University of Washington/Elli Theobald