Effect of global climate change on rare trees and shrubs

Abstract

In the past, climate has fluctuated with periodsof cooler, warmer, drier or wetter weather thanat present. Plants have been able to adapt,but widespread, rapid warming could be disastrousfor rare trees and shrubs – i.e. thosenative species that are among an area’s mostinfrequent and most in need of conservationefforts. Rare plants and rare plant communitiesoften exist as relicts of times past, andhave survived locally owing to very particularcombinations of environmental conditions.

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