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The Greenhouse Effect
Until recently the enhanced Greenhouse Effect was considered largely the future domain of engineering companies in coastal areas. The Greenhouse Effect is the warming up of the earth’s atmosphere due to the trapping of solar radiation by carbon dioxide. This effect has been enhanced by the burning of fossil fuels. Modern analyses have shown that we understand little of the Greenhouse effect: we cannot accurately predict either the magnitude of its effects at equilibrium, or at what stage it will in fact equilibrate. However, there is no doubt that rainfall and temperatures will be affected. This will produce a major headache: the location of crop-producing areas will change. What though will happen to the natural flora?
In the past vegetation communities have migrated up and down mountains and across vast plains, sometimes squeezed into isolated refugia where conditions remained suitable, at other times expanding to an extensive coverage. These migrations followed past climatic changes. However, the enhanced Greenhouse changes will be different: Firstly, the warming is too fast - plant populations cannot migrate at the projected rates of climate change.
Because the warming is not in equilibrium (the oceans will not heat up until much later), climatic events will not parallel that of the past: events will be less predictable and more extreme. Secondly, migration is now often impossible: the wide plains have been transformed into agricultural lands, pasturage and conurbations. This poses a major dilemma: the flora of our nature reserves and national parks will be transformed as elements migrate out of reserves to extinction, other elements become extinct in reserves, and yet others will increase in abundance. How does one determine which existing reserves might be a suitable site for translocating such species?
By providing baseline data on a detailed species distributions by habitat, the Proteaceae Atlas Project will enable researchers to predict the conditions that will be favoured by plant species in those communities. Any changes in the distributions of Proteaceae in these communities can then be monitored into the future to determine if the enhanced Greenhouse Effect is having an impact on populations. Together these data should accurately predict suitable conservation areas under any theorized equilibrium conditions.
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