[MCN] How and when did Ponderosa pine get to Montana?

[Lance Olsen]

USGS: Climate Past as Prologue for Ponderosa Pines 14 Dec 2015 08:30 AM PST

Summary: Scientists from the National Park 
Service and the U.S. Geological Survey have 
reconstructed the recent migration history of 
ponderosa pine trees in the central Rocky Mountains


Scientists from the National Park Service and the 
U.S. Geological Survey have reconstructed the 
recent migration history of ponderosa pine trees 
in the central Rocky Mountains. Their 
recently <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jbi.12670/full>published 
study on the movement of this species, through 
centuries and across complex terrain, is 
unprecedented in its methodology and scope. The 
investigation informs an uncertain climate and 
ecological future.

Experts project that climate change will force 
many species to adjust their geographical 
distributions in the near future, with cascading 
consequences for biodiversity, conservation 
biology, and ecosystem services.  Important 
lessons can be drawn from an understanding of the 
movement rates and pathways of northward 
migrations of vegetation that followed the end of 
the last Ice Age, some of which are still ongoing.

Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), the most widely 
distributed pine in North America, experienced 
one of the most rapid and extensive of these 
post-glacial plant migrations. The eastern race 
of ponderosa pine (variety scopulorum) spread 
northward along the Rocky Mountains, starting at 
its northernmost known distribution in southern 
New Mexico and Arizona around 13,000 years ago, 
and reached central Montana only within the last 
millennium. The western race (variety ponderosa) 
experienced a parallel but less well-known 
migration along the Sierra Nevada, eventually 
mingling with the northernmost populations of the 
eastern race in the northern Rockies.

The researchers, funded in part by the National 
Science Foundation, focused their efforts on the 
northern half of the distribution in South 
Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana, which they assumed 
had experienced the most recent spread of 
ponderosa pine. The study targeted sites where 
ponderosa grows today in settings suitable for 
the preservation of fossil packrat middens. 

Packrat middens are rock-hard amalgamations of 
easily-identified plant and animal remains 
embedded in crystallized urine, commonly 
preserved in rock shelters and crevices, and 
readily datable to within a few decades using 
radiocarbon analysis. Since the 1960s, several 
thousand middens found in semi-arid areas from 
Mexico to Canada have been analyzed to 
reconstruct vegetation changes over the past 
50,000 years.

The team collected 90 middens spanning the last 
11,000 years to pinpoint the arrival of ponderosa 
pine at each of 14 sites in western South Dakota, 
northern Wyoming, and west-central Montana. Jodi 
Norris, a National Park Service ecologist and 
senior author of the study, likened the fieldwork 
to "a treasure hunt where you and your science 
buddies clamber on cliffs looking for packrat 
leftovers to track the natural spread of a common 
conifer in the West."

A key finding was that the eastern race of 
ponderosa spread across the region by island 
hopping a few tens of kilometers at a time to 
suitable establishment sites, likely aided by 
seed dispersal via birds. The eastern race 
colonized many of its northernmost sites, 
including sites where it now hybridizes with the 
western race in West-Central Montana, only within 
the last two millennia.

Norris and her USGS co-authors, Julio Betancourt 
and Stephen Jackson, used a bioclimatic model for 
the modern distribution of ponderosa pine to 
infer that the most recent spread must have been 
driven by increases in July temperature and 
precipitation. Future expansion of the ponderosa 
pine range will largely depend on the nature and 
pace of climate change in the region (principally 
warming). Considering other factors such as heavy 
land use and invasive species, native plant 
migrations in the future might be more 
complicated than in the past.

Betancourt cautioned, "Ponderosa pine migration 
in the past happened sluggishly in fits and 
starts, tracking the pace of climate variability. 
But future migration will have to  march to 
unusually rapid warming, this time disrupted by 
pervasive land use.  If expansion to increasingly 
warmer and more suitable sites far to the north 
is desirable, ponderosa dispersal will have to be 
assisted by deliberate and strategic planting."

The <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jbi.12670/full>research 
study, authored by Jodi Norris (National Park 
Service-Flagstaff; Northern Arizona University), 
Julio Betancourt (USGS-Reston, Va.), and Stephen 
Jackson (USGS-Tucson), was published online in 
the Journal of Biogeography.

-- 
================================================================
The Wall Street Journal, DECEMBER 3, 2011
OPINION
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203833104577071901186892744.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_opinion
China's Hard Landing

Excerpts:
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"Millions of luxury apartments are vacant, even 
as there is a shortage of affordable housing for 
the poor."

"Property construction became 'the most important 
sector in the universe,' in the words of UBS 
economist Jonathan Anderson."

"As with most property busts, transactions dried 
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Property developers are slashing prices of new 
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"There is no easy way to avoid the bust that is 
coming. The silver lining is that China's 
increasingly state-led growth model will be 
discredited, and a debate will begin on 
restarting the reforms that stalled in the 
mid-2000s. A financial sector that allocates 
credit based on politics rather than price 
signals led China into this mess. Popular 
pressure to dismantle crony capitalism is 
buildingŠ"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203833104577071901186892744.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_opinion
=================================================================
Financial Times,  September 10,  2014
COMMENT
China faces Japan-style debt woes: charts

Excerpts:
"China's development unfortunately has largely 
followed the script written by Japan some 30 
years ago.
"Like Japan, China's... government resorted to 
stimulus including loose monetary policy and 
supportive housing policy, to hold up growth; 
however, this unintentionally caused a property 
asset inflation, often funded by debt."

"The Chinese government is currently conducting 
mini-stimulus to hold up growth, while allowing 
bad debt in the financial system to worsen."
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