Climate change’s threat to forests – specifically to trees – has garnered much attention among people concerned with protecting our environment. Yet, a lack of research on the effects of climate change on grasslands and shrublands is leaving land managers with little information to make decisions on sustaining these vital landscapes so important for recreation, tribal life, crop and livestock production, and native plant and wildlife conservation.
Forest Service researchers point to recent climatic studies in predicting that by the end of the century, 55 percent of future landscapes in the West will likely have climates that are incompatible with the vegetation types that now occur on those landscapes.
