Grassland lab raises the alarm on species loss
23 Mar 2017
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An endangered Bay checkerspot butterfly on a California goldfields flower within the Coyote Ridge experimental site | Amy Wolf |
By TIM RADFORD | Scientists in California who turned a patch of natural grassland into a laboratory have established a subtle link between flowering times and the mix of species in an ecosystem – indicating that global warming could change planetary biology and disrupt ecosystems in hitherto unsuspected ways.
And since the life cycle of the honeybees, the arrival of the migrant birds, the bloom of flowers and the setting of fruit is dependent on climatic stability, any change could have uncomfortable consequences − first for the natural systems that maintain the management of air and water and waste disposal, and then for human economies that depend on natural services.
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