Little Ice Age and tree hardiness

I saw a show on The History Channel a month or so ago about "the Little Ice Age," a period from roughly the 13th century through the 19th where weather was wildly erratic and generally--sometimes significantly--colder than normal.

I've done a little additional reading and have found that the impact on Northern Hemisphere civilizations and agriculture is fairly well documented. For instance, some famines are at least in part attributable to the LIA. The Vikings, as a power, were crushed. American Indian tribal groups were changed. Viticulture disappeared from much of Europe.

But how did the LIA change wild plants? Could the LIA be accountable for the many southern species of plants in North America that are two or more zones hardier than they need to be in their current ranges now? Could it account for some irregular native range patterns of some plants? Anyone got ideas, thoughts, need for discussion?

Scott

Questions I've asked myself. I don't seem to get any good answers other than deer in the headlamp blank stares.

I live in northeast England, on the edge of zone 8/9.

Some years ago, I sent some acorns of the local native oaks, a natural hybrid population of Quercus × rosacea (= Q. petraea × Q. robur) to someone in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in zone 4/5.

They have proved fully hardy there.

Resin

EQ: gotta teach me how to perform the blue quote box maneuver.

"Could the LIA be accountable for the many southern species of plants in North America that are two or more zones hardier than they need to be in their current ranges now?"

More likely the ones you might be thinking of got pushed south by the glacial advance (then retreat) that ended some 10,000 years ago. A couple hundred years may not be quite enough to make up the distances you remark on.

Hi VV,
True that maybe 350 or so years of cold temperatures 250+ years ago would not have effected the evolution of plants terribly much, but I wonder if many species that had worked themselves north over 9,500 years since the last real ice age were wiped out. Or, at least, pushed back farther south.

It's hard to get any figures on how much colder winters became during that period of time, so it is impossible to know that what is now zone six was then comparable to zone five (or four). But, if it was consistently cold enough to rebuild glaciers in the Alps, then I'm thinking it is safe to assume that the native ranges of many plants at least got their northern edges rounded smooth. And this in part could account for such wierd things as Hydrangea quercifolia being zone five hardy when its entire native range now falls within zones 8 and 9.

Scott

moved to new thread.

This message was edited Jan 25, 2006 11:06 PM

[i'm putting my hearts desire in here so be careful]

TAG!

Nuts! I tried to follow that procedure the last time you told us about it, and I just tried it again, and I STILL don't get it!
[put anything your little heart desireth here] [and] whatever!
Nuts, I say!

Regarding the hardiness issue, you're probably opening a real can of worms. I suspect that retreat during glacial/cold periods, changes in vector ranges, extinction of vector species, and factors unrelated to hardiness all play a part in range restriction. But I await comments from others who know a lot more than I do about all this.

Guy S.

Ugh! That's what I get for not previewing.. The < and the > can be used for other html code so they disappeared.

To put something in quotes replace the ( and the ) with [ and ].

Let's try this one more time.

(quote)put anything your little heart desireth here(/quote)

replace them and it should work this time with those disappearing.

perfect, the ( and the ) didn't disappear as did the < and >.

Sorry folks... I'm just not that good with computers.

Oh Dena... you're it

Hey Guy S, she cut down your albezia yet?
lol
I've been attempting to learn the quote thing to and have yet to master it, as you can plainly see from my above failure.
hi Equil, whats the topic for tonight, something about trees and cold?

Equil, would you start another thread about the quote box thing so everyone can see it and so we don't hi-jack Scott? I still don't get the box quotes, and I think his original thread has the potential to become one of those old GW-type classics if we let it develop unfettered. And stay the heck away from my albizia!

Guy S.

lol
yes Equil teach your eager students, I need me an edgamacation, but I don't want to bother the nice folks here.


edit to say sorry Scott

This message was edited Jan 25, 2006 8:43 PM

Back to the scheduled programming. Plants adapted to biogeochemical cycles or we wouldn't be seeing zone hardiness greater than their range. Water splitting reactions of PS-II had to fit into the equation somehow didn't they? This is way out of my league and I'm probably totally off base here. Perhaps I need a better understanding of PS-II.