1 00:00:06,920 --> 00:00:08,380 - I'm here today with Bob Popp, 2 00:00:08,380 --> 00:00:10,410 who has served as Vermont state botanist 3 00:00:10,410 --> 00:00:12,860 and is a member of the scientific advisory group 4 00:00:12,860 --> 00:00:16,360 on flora of the Vermont Endangered Species Committee. 5 00:00:16,360 --> 00:00:19,050 And today Bob will be presenting 6 00:00:19,050 --> 00:00:22,003 Winners and Losers in a Changing Climate. 7 00:00:23,530 --> 00:00:24,363 - Hi, everybody. 8 00:00:24,363 --> 00:00:27,390 I'm just catching my breath here 9 00:00:27,390 --> 00:00:29,070 cause I've spent the last half hour 10 00:00:29,070 --> 00:00:32,550 trying to get into the Zoom meeting. 11 00:00:32,550 --> 00:00:35,400 And as you see, I made it about two minutes ago. 12 00:00:35,400 --> 00:00:38,063 So, yeah, happy to be here. 13 00:00:39,410 --> 00:00:44,410 So just one quick disclaimer that I put this together 14 00:00:48,357 --> 00:00:51,720 sort of as a project for the flora advisory group 15 00:00:51,720 --> 00:00:53,590 of the Endangered Species Committee. 16 00:00:53,590 --> 00:00:57,740 And I just want to say the work is entirely mine. 17 00:00:57,740 --> 00:00:58,960 I mean, I presented it to them, 18 00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:00,810 but they didn't vet it in any way. 19 00:01:00,810 --> 00:01:03,530 If they had, it would probably be more accurate, 20 00:01:03,530 --> 00:01:05,660 but it would have taken more time. 21 00:01:05,660 --> 00:01:10,583 So, that being said, what I've done here, 22 00:01:12,100 --> 00:01:14,030 and I'll get into this in a second, 23 00:01:14,030 --> 00:01:19,030 is somewhat subjective in that, in this exercise, 24 00:01:20,060 --> 00:01:25,060 I looked at the 162 plants that are listed in the state. 25 00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:28,850 And, don't worry, I'm not gonna go through all of them. 26 00:01:28,850 --> 00:01:32,000 I just wanted to show a small subset of them. 27 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:37,000 And I tried to categorize them into their distribution 28 00:01:37,620 --> 00:01:42,620 being endemic, peripheral, or central. 29 00:01:42,790 --> 00:01:46,290 And then there's a few that are actually disjunct as well. 30 00:01:46,290 --> 00:01:50,570 And, again, this is fairly subjective. 31 00:01:50,570 --> 00:01:54,540 I mean, what I did was I viewed range maps 32 00:01:54,540 --> 00:01:58,080 and some of the manuals and just, 33 00:01:58,080 --> 00:02:00,800 you know, my own knowledge, et cetera. 34 00:02:00,800 --> 00:02:03,550 But some of these that are in one category 35 00:02:03,550 --> 00:02:05,870 could probably be put in another category. 36 00:02:05,870 --> 00:02:10,100 So, it's, yeah, it's a point in time 37 00:02:10,100 --> 00:02:11,990 and it's the best effort. 38 00:02:11,990 --> 00:02:16,290 I also took a subset of the plants 39 00:02:16,290 --> 00:02:20,070 and tried to assign them to a different forested category. 40 00:02:20,070 --> 00:02:23,013 And that too is pretty subjective. 41 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:26,620 So, just, without any further ado. 42 00:02:26,620 --> 00:02:29,910 The one thing I wanna point out here is 43 00:02:30,860 --> 00:02:32,270 this may not be the best example, 44 00:02:32,270 --> 00:02:34,980 but you'll notice the global status, 45 00:02:34,980 --> 00:02:39,730 most of the plants on the Vermont T and E list 46 00:02:39,730 --> 00:02:42,790 are gonna be G4 and G5. 47 00:02:42,790 --> 00:02:43,840 And you see that here. 48 00:02:43,840 --> 00:02:48,610 There's a few G2s and G3s and they're pretty unusual. 49 00:02:48,610 --> 00:02:52,740 And the point being that Vermont doesn't have 50 00:02:52,740 --> 00:02:55,830 a lot of globally rare plants, unfortunately. 51 00:02:55,830 --> 00:02:56,750 We're not the tropics, 52 00:02:56,750 --> 00:03:00,210 we've been glaciated up till 10,000 years ago. 53 00:03:00,210 --> 00:03:01,840 So there hasn't been a huge amount of time 54 00:03:01,840 --> 00:03:03,400 for evolution to occur. 55 00:03:03,400 --> 00:03:07,162 But be that as it may, we do have 162 plants 56 00:03:07,162 --> 00:03:11,063 that are endangered or threatened here. 57 00:03:12,650 --> 00:03:17,650 So, reiterating what I said before, we have the 162. 58 00:03:19,120 --> 00:03:23,560 Only two of those species are G1 or T1. 59 00:03:23,560 --> 00:03:25,520 And for those of you that aren't familiar 60 00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:28,730 with the vernacular, G1 is like the most rare. 61 00:03:28,730 --> 00:03:29,790 It's globally rare. 62 00:03:29,790 --> 00:03:32,320 It means it's rare throughout its range. 63 00:03:32,320 --> 00:03:37,320 Going through G5, which means it's pretty common. 64 00:03:37,870 --> 00:03:42,870 T just is the exact same thing, only it's a sub taxa. 65 00:03:43,770 --> 00:03:45,220 So instead of being a species, 66 00:03:45,220 --> 00:03:48,913 it would apply to a sub species or variety, what have you. 67 00:03:49,790 --> 00:03:52,660 So we just have two that are either G1 or T1, 68 00:03:52,660 --> 00:03:54,210 and they're both, as you might expect, 69 00:03:54,210 --> 00:03:55,510 they're both endemics. 70 00:03:55,510 --> 00:03:57,260 And if you look down at the bottom, 71 00:03:58,760 --> 00:04:03,760 one of them is, the G1 is the Isoetes viridimontana, 72 00:04:06,270 --> 00:04:08,410 which is a newly described species in Vermont. 73 00:04:08,410 --> 00:04:10,480 It's the Green Mountain quillwort. 74 00:04:10,480 --> 00:04:14,430 And then the Jesup's milk-vetch is the T1 75 00:04:14,430 --> 00:04:16,530 because that's actually a variety 76 00:04:16,530 --> 00:04:19,833 of the nominant, Astralagus robbinsii. 77 00:04:21,060 --> 00:04:22,500 So then moving onto G2, 78 00:04:22,500 --> 00:04:27,080 you'll see we have four species, and the peripherals, 79 00:04:27,080 --> 00:04:30,070 there's actually one plant in there that's a peripheral. 80 00:04:30,070 --> 00:04:34,430 The other three are either endemics or disjuncts. 81 00:04:34,430 --> 00:04:37,790 So that's the Champlain beachgrass 82 00:04:37,790 --> 00:04:40,350 and the Boott's rattlesnake-root, are the two endemics. 83 00:04:40,350 --> 00:04:45,010 And then the disjunct is the serpentine sandwort, 84 00:04:45,010 --> 00:04:45,950 which occurs here, 85 00:04:45,950 --> 00:04:49,260 and then it bounces up into Quebec and Labrador, 86 00:04:49,260 --> 00:04:54,170 so it's pretty separated 87 00:04:54,170 --> 00:04:56,870 and restricted to the serpentine belt. 88 00:04:56,870 --> 00:05:01,080 And then moving on to G3, which is globally uncommon, 89 00:05:01,080 --> 00:05:03,970 you see the number of species keeps getting higher. 90 00:05:03,970 --> 00:05:06,647 We move to six and then to 31 and then to 119. 91 00:05:07,983 --> 00:05:11,700 So, again, of the four species, we have one endemic 92 00:05:11,700 --> 00:05:14,760 and one that's in its central part of its range. 93 00:05:14,760 --> 00:05:17,240 The endemic is the last one here, 94 00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:20,460 the Green Mountain maidenhair fern, 95 00:05:20,460 --> 00:05:24,940 and the central one is Polemonium vanbruntiae, 96 00:05:24,940 --> 00:05:29,940 the, spacing out here, eastern Jacob's ladder. 97 00:05:31,930 --> 00:05:36,530 And then as we get into G4, 98 00:05:36,530 --> 00:05:38,400 the less globally rare ones, 99 00:05:38,400 --> 00:05:43,400 you see 77% of those are peripheral and seven are central. 100 00:05:48,610 --> 00:05:53,610 And then in the G5s, 84% of them are on the periphery. 101 00:05:54,600 --> 00:05:57,619 And we just have two disjuncts and then a few centrals. 102 00:05:57,619 --> 00:06:00,160 The two disjuncts that are G5s 103 00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:03,310 are the beach heather and the beach pea, 104 00:06:03,310 --> 00:06:06,370 both of which are ubiquitous along the coast, 105 00:06:06,370 --> 00:06:07,583 as you probably know. 106 00:06:08,740 --> 00:06:13,410 So, getting back to the main event here, 107 00:06:13,410 --> 00:06:14,943 the main analysis I did, 108 00:06:15,963 --> 00:06:18,263 of T and E plants for the distribution status, 109 00:06:19,510 --> 00:06:21,830 you'll see of the 162, 110 00:06:21,830 --> 00:06:25,370 only 3% of them, or five species, are endemics, 111 00:06:25,370 --> 00:06:27,203 and we've already mentioned those. 112 00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:32,567 Three species or 2% of them are disjuncts. 113 00:06:34,460 --> 00:06:37,380 And then there's about 15% that are central. 114 00:06:37,380 --> 00:06:38,610 By that, I mean, they're kind of 115 00:06:38,610 --> 00:06:40,693 in the middle of their range. 116 00:06:41,873 --> 00:06:45,092 The vast majority of our T and E plants, 117 00:06:45,092 --> 00:06:48,836 approximately 80%, are on the periphery. 118 00:06:48,836 --> 00:06:51,253 And what I did was I combined 119 00:06:52,871 --> 00:06:55,805 those that are on the north edge of the periphery 120 00:06:55,805 --> 00:06:57,361 and those that are on the south. 121 00:06:57,361 --> 00:07:02,361 So about 42% of them are on the northern edge of their range 122 00:07:03,418 --> 00:07:06,120 and 32%, so slightly less, 123 00:07:06,120 --> 00:07:08,985 are on the southern edge of their range. 124 00:07:08,985 --> 00:07:13,017 And then there's a few, a little over 5%, 125 00:07:13,017 --> 00:07:14,644 that are on the eastern edge of their range. 126 00:07:14,644 --> 00:07:17,290 And those are essentially prairie species 127 00:07:17,290 --> 00:07:20,020 that just barely get into New England, 128 00:07:20,020 --> 00:07:21,660 but they're more ubiquitous. 129 00:07:21,660 --> 00:07:25,493 They're pretty much all G5s, so ubiquitous in the Midwest. 130 00:07:26,970 --> 00:07:31,970 So then, this being the forest ecologicals monitoring co-op, 131 00:07:32,210 --> 00:07:35,120 I had to do something with forested habitat. 132 00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:40,120 So of the 162, I refined it down to about 44 species 133 00:07:43,760 --> 00:07:48,760 where their habitat is primarily forested. 134 00:07:48,870 --> 00:07:52,030 Now some of these, some of these could go either way, 135 00:07:52,030 --> 00:07:54,100 they occur in forest and open. 136 00:07:54,100 --> 00:07:56,790 And so again, it became somewhat subjective, 137 00:07:56,790 --> 00:08:00,070 but these are the ones where I thought the primary habitat 138 00:08:00,070 --> 00:08:03,360 was some sort of forested natural community. 139 00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:07,430 And within that, I tried to actually assign them 140 00:08:07,430 --> 00:08:09,400 to one of the natural communities 141 00:08:09,400 --> 00:08:12,010 in the "Wetland, Woodland, Wildland" book. 142 00:08:12,010 --> 00:08:17,010 And so what you see here is, of the forested species, 143 00:08:18,090 --> 00:08:22,580 again, almost two-thirds of them are on the periphery 144 00:08:22,580 --> 00:08:24,430 at the northern edge of their range. 145 00:08:24,430 --> 00:08:26,320 And about 20% are in the periphery 146 00:08:26,320 --> 00:08:28,120 in the southern edge of their range. 147 00:08:28,990 --> 00:08:29,823 Whoops. 148 00:08:29,823 --> 00:08:33,330 But what jumps out to me is the communities they're in. 149 00:08:33,330 --> 00:08:35,870 So I think that the one that's most represented 150 00:08:35,870 --> 00:08:38,470 is mesic maple-ash-hickory-oak forest, 151 00:08:38,470 --> 00:08:41,200 and then dry oak-hickory hophornbeam forest. 152 00:08:41,200 --> 00:08:45,120 And both of those communities are expected 153 00:08:45,120 --> 00:08:47,040 to do well with climate change. 154 00:08:47,040 --> 00:08:49,540 I mean, they're both more adapted 155 00:08:49,540 --> 00:08:51,660 to warmer dryer conditions, 156 00:08:51,660 --> 00:08:54,720 and you notice the plants that are associated with those, 157 00:08:54,720 --> 00:08:55,553 as you would expect, 158 00:08:55,553 --> 00:08:57,150 are on the northern edge of their range. 159 00:08:57,150 --> 00:08:59,060 So they should fare pretty well. 160 00:08:59,060 --> 00:09:00,550 But if you look at the plants 161 00:09:00,550 --> 00:09:02,390 at the southern edge of their range, 162 00:09:02,390 --> 00:09:04,550 a number of those are in cedar swamps. 163 00:09:04,550 --> 00:09:07,240 That's like the next highest category. 164 00:09:07,240 --> 00:09:11,723 And from my understanding, what I've read, is that cedar, 165 00:09:12,940 --> 00:09:17,940 along with most of the spruces and balsam fir, 166 00:09:18,110 --> 00:09:19,420 are expected to decline, 167 00:09:19,420 --> 00:09:22,410 at least under the high emissions scenario. 168 00:09:22,410 --> 00:09:26,010 So that doesn't bode well for the future of our cedar swamps 169 00:09:26,010 --> 00:09:30,080 and those plants that are pretty much, 170 00:09:30,080 --> 00:09:33,890 I mean, associated very strongly with cedar swamps. 171 00:09:33,890 --> 00:09:37,950 And then there's a few other plants in other categories. 172 00:09:37,950 --> 00:09:41,393 But I think those are the things that really jump out, 173 00:09:42,370 --> 00:09:44,640 the oak forest, the hophornbeam, again, 174 00:09:44,640 --> 00:09:46,173 all going to do fairly well. 175 00:09:47,580 --> 00:09:52,573 So, moving on to a few case studies here, 176 00:09:54,300 --> 00:09:59,110 this is studied, done by Jerry Jenkins, 177 00:09:59,110 --> 00:10:02,410 where he's been monitoring our only population 178 00:10:02,410 --> 00:10:05,620 of Anemone multifida, the early thimbleweed. 179 00:10:05,620 --> 00:10:09,050 And actually, I think this was most recently picked up, 180 00:10:09,050 --> 00:10:13,110 this monitoring, by Matt Peters, who may be in the audience. 181 00:10:13,110 --> 00:10:15,710 I can't see everybody out there, so... 182 00:10:16,590 --> 00:10:21,150 But, Jerry Jenkins has been monitoring this plant 183 00:10:21,150 --> 00:10:26,090 since, oh, for about, I think, 20 years or more, I'd think. 184 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:30,040 Yeah, 1988 to 2010, he did it. 185 00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:34,000 And what he found was... 186 00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:35,270 Well, first of all, let me back up. 187 00:10:35,270 --> 00:10:38,930 This is a plant that is on the periphery of its range, 188 00:10:38,930 --> 00:10:40,830 the extreme southern edge of it. 189 00:10:40,830 --> 00:10:45,830 So, in New York State, it is considered to be extirpated. 190 00:10:46,070 --> 00:10:47,410 They had one population 191 00:10:47,410 --> 00:10:49,710 and it hasn't been seen in a number of years 192 00:10:49,710 --> 00:10:50,900 and they've gone back to the site, 193 00:10:50,900 --> 00:10:53,860 so it's assumed to be completely gone., 194 00:10:53,860 --> 00:10:57,240 In Maine, they have eight populations, 195 00:10:57,240 --> 00:10:59,293 so that would make it S2. 196 00:11:00,140 --> 00:11:02,790 And then up in Canada, it gets more abundant. 197 00:11:02,790 --> 00:11:06,030 So this is a G5 species because it's so common 198 00:11:06,030 --> 00:11:07,300 up in Canada and Ontario. 199 00:11:07,300 --> 00:11:09,680 I've been told it grows in roadside ditches 200 00:11:09,680 --> 00:11:11,493 up in northern Ontario. 201 00:11:12,920 --> 00:11:15,790 I'd love to see that, or maybe I don't. 202 00:11:15,790 --> 00:11:18,703 So anyway, what Jerry found was, 203 00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:24,750 monitoring this for over 20 years, 204 00:11:24,750 --> 00:11:29,730 the plants have declined 77% over that period of time. 205 00:11:29,730 --> 00:11:33,933 And what he's finding is that there's obviously 206 00:11:35,190 --> 00:11:38,070 an excess of mortality over recruitment, 207 00:11:38,070 --> 00:11:40,040 but it's driven primarily 208 00:11:40,040 --> 00:11:45,040 by high temperatures and dry summers. 209 00:11:46,410 --> 00:11:49,550 And as you can see in the top graph here, 210 00:11:49,550 --> 00:11:51,250 the one in the upper right, 211 00:11:51,250 --> 00:11:56,250 it's almost a series of tabletops in a way 212 00:11:56,840 --> 00:11:59,290 in that you have some really bad years 213 00:12:01,390 --> 00:12:05,240 where there's a very high mortality rate drop-off 214 00:12:05,240 --> 00:12:06,870 and then it levels off for a little bit 215 00:12:06,870 --> 00:12:08,690 where there's reasonable years, 216 00:12:08,690 --> 00:12:10,690 but it still can't recover the loss. 217 00:12:10,690 --> 00:12:12,680 It just kind of holds its own. 218 00:12:12,680 --> 00:12:14,883 And then there's another steep decline, 219 00:12:16,780 --> 00:12:18,570 another steep decline followed 220 00:12:18,570 --> 00:12:21,350 by a level off period, a decline. 221 00:12:21,350 --> 00:12:24,410 And all those years where there have been 222 00:12:24,410 --> 00:12:26,030 really, really steep declines have been 223 00:12:26,030 --> 00:12:28,180 unusually hot and dry summers. 224 00:12:28,180 --> 00:12:31,780 So that's clearly, I mean, it seems like a smoking gun, 225 00:12:31,780 --> 00:12:34,520 what's kind of pushing it over the edge. 226 00:12:34,520 --> 00:12:38,473 It's at the edge of its climatic range to be sure. 227 00:12:39,440 --> 00:12:41,710 And in some of the bad years 228 00:12:41,710 --> 00:12:45,260 there's been up to a 30% mortality. 229 00:12:45,260 --> 00:12:47,540 And then again, the recruitment just is enough 230 00:12:47,540 --> 00:12:49,620 to hold even for a few years, 231 00:12:49,620 --> 00:12:51,570 but it doesn't ever really increase it. 232 00:12:51,570 --> 00:12:55,170 I mean, you see here in the early nineties, 233 00:12:55,170 --> 00:12:57,220 there was actually a slight increase. 234 00:12:57,220 --> 00:12:59,490 And then maybe again in the late nineties 235 00:12:59,490 --> 00:13:00,720 there was a slight increase, 236 00:13:00,720 --> 00:13:02,920 but recruitment is just not doing it. 237 00:13:02,920 --> 00:13:07,010 So this is, needless to say, this is the bad news. 238 00:13:07,010 --> 00:13:10,890 This is Jerry's projection of what's to come. 239 00:13:10,890 --> 00:13:13,130 And we're at about right here now. 240 00:13:13,130 --> 00:13:15,650 We're down to about 100 individuals, 241 00:13:15,650 --> 00:13:20,650 and you see he predicts total extirpation 242 00:13:20,730 --> 00:13:25,050 of this population by 2030, more or less. 243 00:13:25,050 --> 00:13:30,050 And, yeah, we're just kind of monitoring the decline. 244 00:13:31,260 --> 00:13:33,970 I mean, we don't know what else can be done. 245 00:13:33,970 --> 00:13:38,970 We've actually tried planting seeds in cracks in the rocks 246 00:13:39,660 --> 00:13:42,230 to get them started, but it's just... 247 00:13:42,230 --> 00:13:44,220 Maybe it's a losing proposition, I don't know, 248 00:13:44,220 --> 00:13:46,230 but that's beyond the scope of this talk, 249 00:13:46,230 --> 00:13:50,190 something to be discussed over a beer, perhaps, 250 00:13:50,190 --> 00:13:53,083 which we can't really do too well virtually. 251 00:13:54,400 --> 00:13:57,260 So the second scenario, or case study, 252 00:13:57,260 --> 00:13:59,440 is a more positive one. 253 00:13:59,440 --> 00:14:02,083 And this is spotted wintergreen, 254 00:14:03,490 --> 00:14:07,430 which is on the northern periphery of its range. 255 00:14:07,430 --> 00:14:11,130 And you see in New York it's S4, which is really common. 256 00:14:11,130 --> 00:14:13,170 Massachusetts it's S5. 257 00:14:13,170 --> 00:14:16,270 And then as we go north, Maine it's S2, so it's quite rare. 258 00:14:16,270 --> 00:14:17,750 Ontario, it's quite rare. 259 00:14:17,750 --> 00:14:21,763 I don't believe occurs in Quebec, which seems a bit odd. 260 00:14:23,020 --> 00:14:25,780 But you see what's been happening. 261 00:14:25,780 --> 00:14:30,550 In 2006 we had it ranked as S2, 262 00:14:30,550 --> 00:14:33,840 and we knew of 11 populations. 263 00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:36,940 And then in 2018 we changed it to S3 264 00:14:38,093 --> 00:14:39,610 cause we had 24 populations. 265 00:14:39,610 --> 00:14:42,850 And now, I think, in our biotics database 266 00:14:42,850 --> 00:14:45,580 we have something like 37 populations, 267 00:14:45,580 --> 00:14:49,170 and it's still restricted to three counties, 268 00:14:49,170 --> 00:14:51,830 Windham, Windsor, and Rutland. 269 00:14:51,830 --> 00:14:54,720 But recently new populations have been found 270 00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:58,090 in Pomfret and Springfield, which is, you know, 271 00:14:58,090 --> 00:15:01,170 getting to the northern edge of Windsor County. 272 00:15:01,170 --> 00:15:06,170 So this is a plant that really seems to be moving northward 273 00:15:06,730 --> 00:15:09,850 as the climate gets progressively warmer. 274 00:15:09,850 --> 00:15:14,850 And actually, this was a little unfair 275 00:15:15,130 --> 00:15:18,660 because this just made a really great case study, 276 00:15:18,660 --> 00:15:21,130 but it's not state listed, it's just rare. 277 00:15:21,130 --> 00:15:24,310 So, anyway, I kind of bent the rules a little bit 278 00:15:24,310 --> 00:15:25,940 to talk about this one. 279 00:15:25,940 --> 00:15:30,900 But if this were, it would, you know, on the list, 280 00:15:30,900 --> 00:15:32,760 it would have been... 281 00:15:32,760 --> 00:15:35,970 its primary habitat would be forested settings. 282 00:15:35,970 --> 00:15:39,520 And those would be, if I had to put it in a community, 283 00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:44,290 it would be oak-pine, oak-pine-dominated communities, 284 00:15:44,290 --> 00:15:46,160 which, again, we expect 285 00:15:46,160 --> 00:15:48,980 to do really well with climate change. 286 00:15:48,980 --> 00:15:52,943 And this plan certainly, you know, lends to that. 287 00:15:54,340 --> 00:15:58,400 I should also mention that in Art Gilman's "Flora", 288 00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:00,350 which came out in 2015, 289 00:16:00,350 --> 00:16:04,520 so he probably based it on like 2012, 2013 records, 290 00:16:04,520 --> 00:16:06,050 he had it listed as rare. 291 00:16:06,050 --> 00:16:09,370 So this is something that we've only been aware of, 292 00:16:09,370 --> 00:16:10,940 like in the last five or six years, 293 00:16:10,940 --> 00:16:14,490 how much the spotted wintergreen is increasing. 294 00:16:14,490 --> 00:16:18,050 So, again, this will be, this would be one of the winners. 295 00:16:18,050 --> 00:16:21,670 And unfortunately the anemone would be 296 00:16:21,670 --> 00:16:25,083 most likely one of the losers in the climate game. 297 00:16:26,900 --> 00:16:31,080 To sum up here, the majority of Vermont's listed plants 298 00:16:31,080 --> 00:16:32,460 are on the periphery of their range, 299 00:16:32,460 --> 00:16:34,470 about 80%, as I mentioned. 300 00:16:34,470 --> 00:16:38,220 And typically these have lower global ranks, 301 00:16:38,220 --> 00:16:39,880 that is, they're G4s or G%s, 302 00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:41,300 so they're more common elsewhere. 303 00:16:41,300 --> 00:16:44,960 They just barely get into Vermont. 304 00:16:44,960 --> 00:16:48,550 Slightly more of the plants are on their northern periphery, 305 00:16:48,550 --> 00:16:51,010 42 versus 31%. 306 00:16:51,010 --> 00:16:54,170 And, you know, with other things, 307 00:16:54,170 --> 00:16:56,670 not considering other factors, 308 00:16:56,670 --> 00:16:59,620 this bodes well for those, for that 42%, 309 00:16:59,620 --> 00:17:01,590 because they're likely to increase. 310 00:17:01,590 --> 00:17:03,310 Even if they move northward, 311 00:17:03,310 --> 00:17:05,620 they've got the whole state to populate, 312 00:17:05,620 --> 00:17:06,770 cause a lot of them just occur 313 00:17:06,770 --> 00:17:09,980 in the southern-most counties. 314 00:17:09,980 --> 00:17:13,650 The ones on the southern periphery, however, 315 00:17:13,650 --> 00:17:16,720 would be expected to decline 316 00:17:16,720 --> 00:17:18,960 or their range in Vermont to contract, 317 00:17:18,960 --> 00:17:22,143 and they might move northward if that's a possibility. 318 00:17:23,430 --> 00:17:27,020 Just as an aside, the photo is 319 00:17:28,680 --> 00:17:31,100 the Green Mountain maidenhair fern, 320 00:17:31,100 --> 00:17:35,360 which is probably one of the poster children 321 00:17:36,243 --> 00:17:39,500 for the Vermont flora, because it was a species of fern 322 00:17:39,500 --> 00:17:42,180 that was first described in Vermont, 323 00:17:42,180 --> 00:17:45,455 actually by Cathy Paris from UVM. 324 00:17:45,455 --> 00:17:47,540 So, that's pretty neat. 325 00:17:47,540 --> 00:17:50,720 I always take the opportunity to show that off. 326 00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:54,653 So, lastly, just some assumptions here, 327 00:17:55,760 --> 00:17:58,090 and I kind of agonized over this, 328 00:17:58,090 --> 00:18:01,460 that the changing climate conditions, 329 00:18:01,460 --> 00:18:03,160 I mean, they could favor 330 00:18:03,160 --> 00:18:05,770 more rural disturbance adapted species 331 00:18:05,770 --> 00:18:09,650 that are gonna respond more quickly to the climate changes. 332 00:18:09,650 --> 00:18:13,050 So, you know, things that are shorter live annuals, 333 00:18:13,050 --> 00:18:16,393 lighter seeds, disperse more readily, 334 00:18:17,710 --> 00:18:20,800 are gonna move more quickly, so they might do well. 335 00:18:20,800 --> 00:18:24,910 But I'm also thinking that the real stress toleraters 336 00:18:24,910 --> 00:18:28,590 might persist in climate refugia and just kind of hang on. 337 00:18:28,590 --> 00:18:32,050 So, it could work both ways, depending, you know, 338 00:18:32,050 --> 00:18:34,050 where you're situated, 339 00:18:34,050 --> 00:18:38,710 what kind of habitat you're associated with. 340 00:18:38,710 --> 00:18:41,220 Again, that's a bit of an oversimplification 341 00:18:41,220 --> 00:18:44,160 because survival is gonna depend 342 00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:46,400 on so many different factors. 343 00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:47,883 The phonology of the plant, 344 00:18:48,810 --> 00:18:52,110 whether it needs a freezing period, the seeds, 345 00:18:52,110 --> 00:18:54,070 and whether that'll be met. 346 00:18:54,070 --> 00:18:56,410 Its phonology, whether it'll have time 347 00:18:56,410 --> 00:18:57,610 to flower and set seed, 348 00:18:57,610 --> 00:19:00,590 whether it will be at a sink with pollinators, 349 00:19:00,590 --> 00:19:02,550 its competitive capability, 350 00:19:02,550 --> 00:19:05,400 because we expect a lot more other species 351 00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:08,900 to start showing up, especially non-native things. 352 00:19:08,900 --> 00:19:10,770 Continued persistence of the habitat. 353 00:19:10,770 --> 00:19:13,150 I mean, if you're in a cedar swamp 354 00:19:13,150 --> 00:19:16,260 and all the cedars don't persist, 355 00:19:16,260 --> 00:19:19,460 that kind of changes things quite a bit, I would think. 356 00:19:19,460 --> 00:19:22,870 You're gonna see black ash cedar swamp and all the ash die 357 00:19:22,870 --> 00:19:24,500 because of emerald ash borer, 358 00:19:24,500 --> 00:19:27,800 although that's not necessarily a climate thing, but... 359 00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:30,440 So, I guess, to kind of speculate a little bit 360 00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:33,340 about the best use of our resources, 361 00:19:33,340 --> 00:19:35,860 clearly we're not gonna be able 362 00:19:35,860 --> 00:19:38,063 to protect every one of these species. 363 00:19:40,038 --> 00:19:42,330 We just don't have the resources 364 00:19:42,330 --> 00:19:43,880 or the person power to do that. 365 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:46,910 So, my thought at least is 366 00:19:46,910 --> 00:19:50,160 to protect the habitat as best we can, 367 00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:52,520 especially like refugia 368 00:19:52,520 --> 00:19:55,940 where rare plants might be expected to persist 369 00:19:57,840 --> 00:19:59,480 with landscape connectivity. 370 00:19:59,480 --> 00:20:01,930 Things have to have some ability to move. 371 00:20:01,930 --> 00:20:04,930 Plants obviously aren't as mobile as animals, 372 00:20:04,930 --> 00:20:07,610 but we still need, you know, 373 00:20:07,610 --> 00:20:09,620 pollinators to move back and forth. 374 00:20:09,620 --> 00:20:13,180 A lot of plants, the seeds are moved by animals, 375 00:20:13,180 --> 00:20:15,363 so there is a connection there. 376 00:20:16,650 --> 00:20:18,500 I would think our focus would be 377 00:20:18,500 --> 00:20:23,500 on the globally ranked species, the G1s, the G2s, the G3s, 378 00:20:23,700 --> 00:20:26,260 or the ones that are disjunct in Vermont. 379 00:20:26,260 --> 00:20:31,230 Again, disjunct species often have very unique genotypes 380 00:20:31,230 --> 00:20:35,000 and we should definitely try to protect those. 381 00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:40,000 And then lastly, going a little bit out on a limb here, 382 00:20:40,820 --> 00:20:43,570 one thing to consider is assisted migration. 383 00:20:43,570 --> 00:20:45,840 And I don't think we should be moving things 384 00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:48,450 willy-nilly over the landscape, 385 00:20:48,450 --> 00:20:51,490 but I think we should certainly consider it 386 00:20:51,490 --> 00:20:54,940 for G1, G2, and disjunct species 387 00:20:54,940 --> 00:20:57,810 that might need some help moving north. 388 00:20:57,810 --> 00:21:02,810 I mean, if their habitat no longer exists in Vermont, 389 00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:07,850 I think one alternative is extinction. 390 00:21:07,850 --> 00:21:10,420 The other alternative is to help them migrate. 391 00:21:10,420 --> 00:21:13,950 And I know that's gardening, or maybe even playing God, 392 00:21:13,950 --> 00:21:18,080 but we kind of boxed ourself into this one. 393 00:21:18,080 --> 00:21:20,020 And it's something I'm trying to get people 394 00:21:20,020 --> 00:21:22,850 to consider more and more or at least talk about, 395 00:21:22,850 --> 00:21:26,010 the benefits and liabilities of assisted migration. 396 00:21:26,010 --> 00:21:29,040 And then that's pretty much it, 397 00:21:29,040 --> 00:21:30,740 except in the background here 398 00:21:30,740 --> 00:21:33,040 is another one of our poster children. 399 00:21:33,040 --> 00:21:34,920 This is the Jesup's milk-vetch, 400 00:21:34,920 --> 00:21:39,300 which is the G1, I mean G5, excuse me, T1. 401 00:21:39,300 --> 00:21:43,320 So it's an extremely rare subspecies 402 00:21:43,320 --> 00:21:47,830 of more common milk-vetch, 403 00:21:47,830 --> 00:21:49,580 and it occurs in only three places, 404 00:21:49,580 --> 00:21:52,453 it's worldwide distribution, along the Connecticut River. 405 00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:57,680 We're working to actually introduce it 406 00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:01,153 to some new sites to the north. 407 00:22:02,020 --> 00:22:05,180 So, maybe we're already doing assisted migration. 408 00:22:05,180 --> 00:22:08,143 I don't know if we would call it that, but we might. 409 00:22:09,510 --> 00:22:13,850 That's all I have to say, and I'm happy to answer questions 410 00:22:13,850 --> 00:22:16,750 or have a discussion as time permits. 411 00:22:16,750 --> 00:22:21,750 So I'll turn it over to Matthias, and let him moderate. 412 00:22:21,810 --> 00:22:23,460 - Thank you, Bob. That was great. 413 00:22:24,500 --> 00:22:26,040 I really appreciate it. 414 00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:26,890 - You're welcome.