The researchers created maps showing where warmer weather has left trees in conditions that don't suit them, making them more prone to being replaced by other species. The findings could help inform long-term wildfire and ecosystem management in these "zombie forests." Watch the video here.
Like an old man suddenly aware the world has moved on without him, the conifer tree native to lower elevations of California's Sierra Nevada mountain range finds itself in an unrecognizable climate. A new Stanford-led study reveals that about a fifth of all Sierra Nevada conifer forests - emblems of Western wilderness - are a "mismatch" for their regions' warming weather. The paper, published Feb. 28 in PNAS Nexus, highlights how such "zombie forests" are temporarily cheating death, likely to be replaced with tree species better adapted to the climate after one of California's increasingly frequent catastrophic wildfires.
"Forest and fire managers need to know where their limited resources can have the most impact," said study lead author Avery Hill, a graduate student in biology at Stanford's School of Humanities & Sciences
