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How Climate Change is Impacting Thoreau’s Walden Pond
http://ecowatch.com/2014/01/18/climate-change-impact-thoreaus-walden-pond/
How Climate Change is Impacting Thoreau’s Walden Pond
Climate News Network | January 18, 2014 | By Tim Radford
Walden, where Henry David Thoreau planted beans on land that had yielded only cinquefoil, blackberries, johnswort and sweet wild fruits, is changing. The trees and shrubs around Walden Pond are now out on average 18 days earlier than 150 years ago, when Thoreau made his observations. And, according to U.S. scientists in the journal New Phytologist, native species could lose out to invasive shrubs such as the Japanese barberry.
Concord, MA, occupies a special place in America’s history: it was the site of the first battle of the War of Independence in the eighteenth century, and later it was immortalized by the writings of Thoreau. But the nineteenth century author did more than publish elegant observations of the natural economy. He also recorded the first moment when leaves emerged on the trees around Walden Pond, near Concord, and did so for five years between 1852 and 1860.
Caroline Polgar, a student at Boston University, decided to repeat his observations. What she found was surprising: “all species—no exceptions—are leafing out earlier now than they did in Thoreau’s time. On average, woody plants in Concord leaf out 18 days earlier now.”
<snip>
“The experiments show that as spring weather continues to warm, it will be the invasive shrubs that will be best able to take advantage of the changing conditions,” Gallinat concluded.
<snip>
How Climate Change is Impacting Thoreau’s Walden Pond
Climate News Network | January 18, 2014 | By Tim Radford
Walden, where Henry David Thoreau planted beans on land that had yielded only cinquefoil, blackberries, johnswort and sweet wild fruits, is changing. The trees and shrubs around Walden Pond are now out on average 18 days earlier than 150 years ago, when Thoreau made his observations. And, according to U.S. scientists in the journal New Phytologist, native species could lose out to invasive shrubs such as the Japanese barberry.
Concord, MA, occupies a special place in America’s history: it was the site of the first battle of the War of Independence in the eighteenth century, and later it was immortalized by the writings of Thoreau. But the nineteenth century author did more than publish elegant observations of the natural economy. He also recorded the first moment when leaves emerged on the trees around Walden Pond, near Concord, and did so for five years between 1852 and 1860.
Caroline Polgar, a student at Boston University, decided to repeat his observations. What she found was surprising: “all species—no exceptions—are leafing out earlier now than they did in Thoreau’s time. On average, woody plants in Concord leaf out 18 days earlier now.”
<snip>
“The experiments show that as spring weather continues to warm, it will be the invasive shrubs that will be best able to take advantage of the changing conditions,” Gallinat concluded.
<snip>
