Join Sarah Erskine, Emerald Chapter Board member and PhD Candidate in the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Oregon, as she shares results of her research along with some beautiful plant photos! You may have seen some of her lab’s research plots along the river path near the UO bridge to Autzen Stadium, so come and listen to what that experiment is all about. 

While climate change affects species in numerous ways, one of the most observable effects is the shifting of phenological events, such as the timing of germination or flowering. Increasing temperatures and drought have generally led to earlier leaf out and flowering times, but there is also great variation in how species shift their phenology, even among co-occurring species. This talk will describe how many of our local prairie wildflowers are shifting their life cycles with climate warming, how these shifts vary across the landscape with environmental heterogeneity, and how they may be connected to other plant responses to climate change.