Tree Range Shifts Among Discover Magazine’s Top 100 Stories of 2017

Each year, a special issue of Discover magazine highlights the top 100 science stories of the previous year. Ranked number 59 on the most recent list is a story based on research coauthored by Kevin Potter, a North Carolina State University scientist cooperating with the Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center.

Potter and colleagues from the Natural Resources Spatial Analysis Lab at Purdue University and the Southern Research Station analyzed extensive data on 86 tree species in the eastern United States and found that most trees have been shifting their ranges westward or northward in response to temperature and precipitation changes. (Their results were published in the May 2017 issue of Science Advances.)

 

For more information, see the article in Discover magazine, and this news item and this blog posting from the U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station.

 

January 8, 2018