Climate change modelling of VAccinium species in North America
Canadian Arctic is experiencing climate change at twice the rate of global average.
Plants in this region are tolerant to harsh conditions of the Arctic. On top of that, they are required to adapt to climate change more rapidly than others.
This provides an important study system to monitor the impact of fast-changing climate on Northern community.
Why study Vaccinium species?
"What lives in the Arctic?" was my first question as an international student coming from Asia who never thought Arctic was full of living organisms. I used to think that polar extremes are completely covered by ice sheets or barren with no sign of life. Despite harsh climate, Arctic flora represents the rich and dynamic biodiversity, with over 2,000 plant species thriving in Canadian Arctic Archipelago alone. Birch, willows, and many dwarf shrubs are some of the main inhabitants.
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Genus Vaccinium includes over 500 species of dwarf shrubs many of which produce edible berries. In the Arctic, two of Vaccinium species are found: lingonberry (V. vitis-idaea) and bog bilberry (V. uliginosum). They are important food source for Indigenous peoples and wild animals in the North, serving both cultural and ecological roles. My goal of this project was to predict how these important plant species will be affected by climate change using climate change modelling. The result will be useful to plan for the long-term management strategies in the Northern community.
Left: V. vitis-idaea ssp. minus Right: V. uliginosum
Photo credits: PlantSMART Lab @UBCO
How do Vaccinium species perform under future climate change scenarios?
V. macrocarpon CURRENT SSP126-2080 SSP585-2080
We performed climate change models using Maximum entropy method and found the northward progression and expansion of these two wild Northern species habitat (green shade = positive change, orange shade = negative change). This was consistent with some other earlier works and reports suggesting that the warming of the arctic would promote the 'greening' of the tundra vegetation due to milder winter and warmer, longer growing season.
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On the other hand, using the same models, we found two other Southern Vaccinium species habitat (V. macrocarpon or commercial cranberry, V. oxycoccos or wild cranberry) to shrink significantly under climate change scenarios. In collaboration with Ocean Spray®, we were able to map the current commercial cranberry farm locations and predict their environmental suitability in the future. The predicted suitability map indicated many of the farms in the United States (Michigan, Massachusetts and Wisconsin) will be unsuited for cranberry farming in the near future, whereas farms in Pacific Northwest (BC Canada, Oregon, and Washington) will stay relatively suitable.
Hirabayashi, K., Murch, SJ., Erland, LAE. "Predicted impacts of climate change on wild and commercial berry habitats will have food security, conservation and agricultural implications", Science of the Total Environment 845 (2022) 157341. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157341
Additionally, we observed a quite significant difference in their variable dependence. V. macrocarpon and V. oxycoccos had over 50% variable dependence on mean annual temperature (Bio1) and precipitation (Bio12), whereas V. vitis-idaea and V. uliginosum showed more evenly distributed variable dependency consisting of some edaphic and topographic properties. This may suggest that the northern species which already possess abiotic stress coping mechanism in place have a greater success at persistence under climate change.
Future perspectives and follow-up studies
Empirical or molecular studies to explain the trend I found in this modelling work would be interesting follow-up. Particularly the variable dependence seen in southern vs. northern species would be interesting to investigate further by experimental drought or temperature treatment. These findings would help us understand the biological basis of climate change resilience across species which may be useful in future cultivar screening and selection for these valuable Vaccinium species.
Check out my current project to sequence and assemble the lingonberry (V. vitis-idaea) genome!