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Montana?</title></head><body>
<div><b>USGS: Climate Past as Prologue for Ponderosa Pines</b> 14 Dec
2015 08:30 AM PST</div>
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<div><b>Summary:</b> 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
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<div>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 <a
href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jbi.12670/full"
>published study</a> 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.<br>
</div>
<div>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.<br>
</div>
<div>Ponderosa pine (<i>Pinus ponderosa</i>), 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 <i>scopulorum</i>) 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 <i>ponderosa</i>) 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.<br>
</div>
<div>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. <br>
</div>
<div>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.<br>
</div>
<div>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."<br>
</div>
<div>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.<br>
</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>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."<br>
</div>
<div>The <a
href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jbi.12670/full"
>research study</a>, 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 <i>Journal of Biogeography</i>.</div>
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<div><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="-1"
color="#000000"
>================================================================<br>
<b>The Wall Street Journal, DECEMBER 3, 2011<br>
</b>OPINION<br>
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020383310457707190118689<span
></span>2744.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_opinion<br>
<b>China's Hard Landing</b></font><br>
<font face="Bookman Old Style" size="-1"
color="#000000"><b></b></font></div>
<div><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="-1"
color="#000000">Excerpts:<br>
"Now comes the hangover. . The country is littered with
luxurious county government offices, ghost cities of empty apartment
blocks, unsafe high-speed rail lines and crumbling highways to
nowhere."<br>
<br>
"Millions of luxury apartments are vacant, even as there is a
shortage of affordable housing for the poor."<br>
<br>
"Property construction became 'the most important sector in the
universe,' in the words of UBS economist Jonathan Anderson."<br>
<br>
"As with most property busts, transactions dried up, followed by
a free fall in prices. Land prices were down 60% year on year in
September. Property developers are slashing prices of new homes to
stave off bankruptcy."<br>
<br>
"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
building"<br>
<br>
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020383310457707190118689<span
></span>2744.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_opinion<br>
=================================================================</font
></div>
<div><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="-1"
color="#000000"><b>Financial Times, September 10, 2014<br>
</b>COMMENT<br>
<b>China faces Japan-style debt woes: charts<br>
<br>
</b>Excerpts:<br>
"China's development unfortunately has largely followed the script
written by Japan some 30 years ago.<br>
"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."</font></div>
<div><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="-1" color="#000000"><br>
"The Chinese government is currently conducting mini-stimulus to
hold up growth, while allowing bad debt in the financial system to
worsen."</font></div>
<div><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="-1"
color="#000000">========================================</font></div>
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