— Climate change opens new avenue for spread of invasive plants

21.11.08 - 14:35 ... source : University of Florida

... University of Florida News University of Florida News UF Web with Google UF Phonebook Climate change opens new avenue for spread of invasive plants Filed under Environment, Florida, Research on Wednesday, November 19, 2008. GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Plants that range northward because of climate change may be better at defending themselves against local enemies than native plants. So concludes a team of scientists including a University of Florida geneticist. The team's findings, reported in today's online edition of Nature, suggest that certain plants could become invasive if they spread to places that were previously too cold for them. "This paper is the first to suggest that the mechanisms that aid invasive species when they move from one continent to the next may actually work within continents when climate change gradually extends the distributional range of a species," said Koen J.F. Verhoeve ...» Next (HTML)