My project concerns how biological communities respond to climate change. As the climate changes, the habitable areas of a species will shift, and in many cases species distributions will have to move 100's of kilometers to avoid extinction. For instance, American beech, Fagus grandifolia, (a large component of eastern hardwood forests, a common tree here in the Triangle) is predicted to be almost completely extirpated from its range in the U.S. and will find hospitable habitat mostly in Canada. But will this tree species be able to migrate fast enough to its new habitat? We're interested not only in this one tree species' survival but also with other components of this forest community. How will the entire community respond to global warming? As a clue to the migration capacity of different forest components, we look at how a host tree and an understory parasitic plant responded to a past era of global warming that occurred following the last ice age. We're working on tracing the post-glacial colonization routes of the parasitic plant, Epifagus virginiana, and comparing it with the migration history of its host tree, the American beech.
The photo shows an Epifagus virginiana infection. Epifagus are the brown stick like things poking up from the ground. They have no chlorophyll or leaves and get all their food and nutrients from the beech tree they're connected to. Notice how they appear to be in a line; this colony happens to be connected to a large beech root near the soil surface.
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