Climate change and wild plants
Under pressure: climate change and the UK’s wild plants
Climate change poses a unique challenge for plants. They cannot simply get up and leave if conditions become unsuitable. Climate change is happening at a speed that is outstripping the rate at which plants can evolve.
Species-rich chalk grassland at Martin Down,
Hampshire. We need to link up areas with
similar geology to help their unique species
migrate ©Joe Sutton
Species distributions are changing and although our native flora is now experiencing frequent and more extreme weather events, plants are slower to respond than other wildlife.
Predictions suggest that species will migrate northwards and upwards in altitude as their climatic space moves. However, this migration is unlikely to be a smooth or uneventful one.
In the UK’s fragmented countryside, semi-natural habitats are not continuous enough to provide plants with sufficient suitable areas to colonise.
Plantlife's report Under pressure - climate change and wild plants presents a set of recommendations that form a toolkit to enable government at all levels, conservation and research organisations to take action to protect the UK’s native flora from climate change.
Recommendations
Provide robust habitats
- Develop and fund landscape scale management schemes that establish networks of suitable habitats (such as ponds, hedgerows and small woods) for migrating species as well as providing suitable receptor sites for incoming seeds and spores.
Make the countryside welcoming to plants
- Fully integrate habitat conservation and creation with other types of land use through agri-environment and forestry schemes and cross compliance measures. At all scheme reviews, assess whether these measures are delivering to a level that keeps up with the pace of climate change.
- Ensure that sustainable development includes mechanisms to ‘climate change proof’ all planning and land use policies, plans and strategies for the next generation and beyond.
Look after what we already have
Meadow clary, one of our most endangered
species, could spread northwards as the
climate warms but in practice will be restricted by
the lack of suitable habitat.
© Simon Williams/Plantlife
- Conserve genetic variation at local sites and increase species and habitat resilience through increasing the size, number and inter-connectivity of sites.
- Assess the known, and potential, spread of non-native invasive species including those proposed as biomass crops. Develop risk assessments for new biomass crops and model potential invasive impacts under climate change scenarios.
- Monitor the impacts of climate change on both common and rare plants including phenology, distribution and status.
Continue research into the effects of climate change on plants by developing realistic models based on a fragmented habitat system. This would be useful as a predictive tool for identifying locations to target habitat (re)creation, for predicting changes in plant distribution and identifying effective buffer zones.
