New Grant to Investigate Multiple Factors of Plant Population Change

Understanding how plant populations respond to changing environments is complicated by the fact that fluctuations in plant performance reflect annual, year-to-year variation in the weather, a plant's ability to store and reallocate resources over time, as well as long-term trends in the environment. Elizabeth Crone received a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop methods for separating these different kinds of variation when monitoring data for plant populations. This project will involve collaboration with botanists in Oulanka National Park (Finland) to study how river regulation affects riparian wildflowers, and how orchids at their range limits are responding to climate change.