Climate change causing plant species to die off

With the planet warming due to the effects of climate change, some species in Manitoba and around the world are starting to die off.

Though some types of plants are tolerant of temperature changes and drought conditions, certain species are becoming rarer over time due to heat waves, with climate change also causing certain diseases to become more prevalent.

“Sugar pines for example and some of the other pine species are actually dying off at lower elevations because it’s just too hot for them to survive anymore,” said Diana Bizecki Robson, who is the curator of botany at the Manitoba Museum.

Bizecki Robson noted that even some species that are typically more tolerant of dry conditions, including cacti, are having trouble surviving.

“They need to breathe at night,” she said. “But the temperature hasn’t been getting low enough at night for them to open their special little air holes and there have been some saguaro cactus actually dying off.”

In Manitoba specifically, Bizecki Robson said there is a wide range of vegetation that shifts from forest to grassland depending on the climate.

However, as the climate changes some species might start dying out in places where they were once abundant. This includes forests becoming grasslands, grasslands becoming deserts, and deserts becoming devoid of vegetation.

“We could see some of those changes happening in Manitoba with parkland areas becoming grasslands in the future,” she explained.

- With files from CTV’s Rachel Lagace.