“Any truth is better than make-believe.”
-Henry David Thoreau in Walden
The Ecological Society of America (ESA) named former lab member Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie, who is now a postdoc at University of Maine, and Richard Primack as recipients of the George Mercer Award, awarded for excellence in a recent research paper lead by a young scientist. Richard and Caitlin shared the award with three co-authors, including lead author Mason Heberling. The study, entitled “Phenological mismatch with trees reduces wildflower carbon budgets,” appeared last year in the scientific journal Ecology Letters.
Caitlin at her field site in Acadia National Park
The study demonstrates that trees are responding more rapidly to climate change than wildflowers, and this is having a negative effect on wildflower energy budgets. The BU team combined their own and Thoreau’s observations of trees and wildflowers in the 1850s in Concord, MA with photosynthetic data of wildflowers collected by Mason and his team in a forest near Pittsburgh.
Richard wearing a face mask while carrying out his 18th field season in Concord -- and not practicing social distancing with Thoreau.
The combined analysis shows that small differences in the responses of wildflowers versus trees to a warming climate could already be harming wildflower abundance, growth, and reproduction, with greater effects predicted in coming years.
Mason Heberling at his field site.
Members of the group are continuing to work together to carry out some of the new observations and experiments suggested in their paper.
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