Climate Change Threatens an Iconic Desert Tree

3 COMMENTS
SHARE
TOP

Climate Change
Threatens an Iconic
Desert Tree
Its not just the polar bear. Animals and plants in Earths other extreme
environmentthe desertare endangered by rising temperatures.

At Joshua Tree National Park in Californias Mojave Desert, these tough, gnarled plants are threatened by
climate change. A survey of the park found few or no young trees in roughly 30 percent of their range.

PHOTOGRAPH BY KEVIN SCHAFER, MINDEN PICTURES/CORBIS

By Osha Gray Davidson, National Geographic

PUBLISHED WED OCT 28 07:00:00 EDT 2015

Explorer: Bill Nyes Global Meltdown boils down the facts on climate change, premiering Sunday,
November 1, at 8/7c on the National Geographic Channel.

Close your eyes and imagine a species living in a harsh environment threatened by
climate change. If you conjured up a polar bear, Cameron Barrows has a suggestion:
Consider, instead, the Joshua treethe gnarly icon of the Southwests Mojave Desert
that looks like it sprang from a Dr. Seuss book.
Animals living in the Arctic get a lot more attention than plants in arid lands, but
desert plants like the Joshua tree are also threatened by a changing climate, says
Barrows, a research ecologist at the University of California, Riversides Center for
Conservation Biology.
An environmental group recently petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to
declare the Joshua tree, which can grow up to 40 feet tall and lives an average of 150
years, as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. So far, only one species, the
polar bear, has been added to the national list based on the threats posed by climate.

The Desert Southwest and the Arctic are being

ripped apart by climate change faster than
anywhere else because they are North
America's most extreme ecosystems.
Kiern Suckling

Center for Biological Diversity

Scientists say thousands of other species are at risk, too. One study predicted under a
scenario of changing climate that between 15 and 37 percent of Earths plants and
animals will have populations so small by 2050 that extinction is virtually certain.
Other than the Arctic, deserts may have the most to lose as the planet warms because
anything surviving there already lives on the edge.
Because plants and animals in ecosystems have complex relationships, its not just
the Joshua tree at risk, says Kiern Suckling, executive director of the Center for
Biological Diversity, based in Tucson, Arizona.

Adapted to a dry climate, Joshua trees have shallow roots that spread out and suck up rainwater. They
can survive on one good rainfall per year. Seedlings, however, lack this extensive root network and need
regular rain events to survive.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ED DARACK, STOCK/CORBIS

The Desert Southwest and the Arctic are being ripped apart by climate change faster
than anywhere else, says Suckling, because they are North America's most extreme
ecosystems.

Fewer Young Trees

Until the last ice age ended about 11,000 years ago, Joshua trees thrived throughout
the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico. As the Earth grew warmer and drier, their

range contracted to Californias Joshua Tree National Park, where the Mojave and
Sonoran deserts overlap, as well as small parts of Arizona, Nevada, and Utah.
Barrows, who recently completed the first year of a 20-year biological study of
Joshua Tree National Park, found few or no young trees in roughly 30 percent of
their range.

In some areas we surveyed, there are no baby

Joshua trees at all.
Cameron Barrows

University of California, Riverside

Based on climate models using a 3-degree Celsius (5.4-degree Fahrenheit) increase,

the range of Yucca brevifolia could be reduced up to 90 percent by the end of this
century, Barrows says. Under that scenario, it would exist only in isolated pockets,
called refugia, scattered across the 800,000-acre national park.
Like most desert dwellers, Joshua trees have developed a suite of adaptations to
survive in the desert. Because there is no groundwater to draw on, the succulent (not
technically a tree) lacks the deep taproot of plants that grow in wetter climes. But
when it rains in the desert, it pours. So Joshua trees have developed a shallow
network of roots, each the size of a persons little finger, that spreads five to six
meters around each plant and sucks up rainwater like an industrial sump pump.
The big guys just need a good rainstorm every other year, Barrows says.
Seedlings, however, lack this extensive root network and depend on regular rain
events to survive. With increasing frequency and duration of droughts, new Joshua
trees are not replacing old ones. In some areas we surveyed, reports Barrows,
there are no baby Joshua trees at all.
At one location in the Mojave Desert, Twentynine Palms, weather station records
indicate that the mean temperature has increased 2 degrees Fahrenheit over 40
years. But the real change came in the nighttime lows, which are nearly 8 degrees
Fahrenheit above average.

What that means, Barrows says, is that even though precipitation is about the
same, the evaporation rate is higher. Less water is available to the plants.

Invasive Grasses and Nitrogen, Too

Joshua trees also face other threats, including the spread of red brome, a grass native to
the Mediterranean. The invasive grass fuels intensely hot wildfires that can incinerate
even the largest Joshua trees. Park records dating back to 1945 indicate that fires there
are becoming larger, more frequent, and more destructive.
Helping drive the grass invasion is nitrogen, an air pollutant carried by winds from
Southern California. It acts as a fertilizer of desert soil. Fertilizing the ground
doesnt sound so bad if youre a farmer, Barrows says, but if youre a Joshua tree,
thats definitely not good news.
Many other species, among the national parks 700 plants, 40 mammals, and 40
reptiles, also are at risk from the changing climate. The pion pine is a prime
example. With a lifespan that can extend beyond 1,000 years, pion are being
squeezed out of the park even faster than Joshua trees. They are stressed by drought
and attacked by beetles that had been held in check by lower winter temperatures.
And then theres the fate of creatures that are inseparable from the Joshua tree like
the tiny yucca moth (Tegeticula spp.). In an extraordinary example of co-evolution,
each species of yucca plant is pollinated by a single species of moth. Researchers
dont know if the moths are declining, but they say the possibility is troubling.
If Joshua trees can hang out in refugia, says Barrows, the question becomes, can
moths survive there, too? If the answer is no, theyll both go extinct.
Is the Joshua tree the canary in the coal mine of the arid Southwest? The Joshua
tree, Barrows says, is just one of a whole lot of canaries here.
Researchers and activists agree that climate change poses a threat to Joshua trees,
but they disagree on how best to protect them.
We want to do everything we can to make sure these trees have the best chance at
surviving, says Taylor Jones, endangered species advocate for WildEarth Guardians,
the New Mexico-based group that petitioned for the federal listing. And that means
using all available tools.

But Barrows isnt convinced that using the Endangered Species Act is the answer to
what ails this symbol of the Mojave Desert.

Climate change is an international issue, he says. The folks on the ground, the land
managers at the park, dont have the ability to fix that.