Climate Change: How Plants Respond
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
Join Maine State Climatologist Dr. George Jacobson and Extension Educator Esperanza Stancioff for a lecture about New England’s ever-changing climate and vegetation. Dr. Jacobson will explain how dynamics of atmospheric and oceanic circulation are driven by forces acting at many different frequencies, all of which function in concert. For thousands of years, these factors have strongly influenced the distribution, abundance, and phenology (seasonal life cycles) of plants on the landscape. More recent examples include changes in the USDA plant growing zones. Today we observe the consequences of human activities that are now perturbing some of the natural systems on a massive scale.
Ms. Stancioff will then describe how citizen scientists in Maine, including at the Botanical Gardens, are teaming together through the “Signs of the Seasons” project to collect phenology data so that scientists may better understand how plants respond to climate change.