MYTH: Increasing temperatures will benefit plant vegetation in Canada.

	Photo: ©@iStockphoto.com/Jason Verschoor

FACT: Since photosynthetic plants breathe in carbon dioxide, rising carbon levels, accompanied by rising temperatures, should seem to be beneficial to plants. And in the short term, plants may actually do better with the warmer weather by expanding their growing season. But the initial effects may be offset with the introduction of new pests that have extended their habitat northward. there may also be problems with timing overlap between insects and flowering plants for pollination. Finally, water resources may change ─ with rising temperatures, regional precipitation will vary to extreme,s causing extensive flooding and droughts.

Researchers have identifed climate change as one of the major challenges — along with habitat destruction and invasive species — to plant and animal conservation in the 21st century. This climatic shift is already observed in central Alberta where the quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), a commercial pulpwood tree, is shifting its range northward and blooming 26 days earlier than it did a century ago. This invader has already had a devastating effect on plant and animal species in the tundra, which are being crowded out.