Scientific research in applied plant ecology is constantly happening, and learning about an article written in my birth year allows for the understanding of how important topics we learn about today have been studied in the past, to provide the information we need to educate ourselves. An article written by Marcelo Sternberg et al. (1999) about plant community dynamics under conditions imposed by climate change. They experimented in a grassland in the UK where the team simulated conditions of climate change with two factors: Warmer winters with increased summer rainfall, and warmer winters with summer drought. What the researchers found was that when conditions are warmer in winter succession in species is decreased as annuals are able to colonize the sward and allow for them to persist. Wetter summers allowed for grassy species to become dominant during this time further preventing the succession of species. Also found in this study is that in warmer winters with a summer drought, litter concentrations increased. The study of climate change is consistently necessary as industrialization has taken over the modern world. Increased effects of pollution and damage to our natural environment from industrialization and use of fossil fuels is creating problems in nature that now humans have to deal with. We’ve seen difficulty in species preservation and are now considered to be in a human generated mass extinction event (The Guardian 2017). The study of the conditions we face now allow us to prepare and combat the effects of climate change.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 