Just a few species can drive a plant community's response to warming temperatures

A new analysis of experimental data led by the University of Michigan has unveiled insights into why and how plant communities are changing their makeup to survive in warmer temperatures. Thanks to field studies of plant communities in nature, scientists had previously established that plant species that prefer warmth are becoming more abundant, while those that prefer cooler temperatures are waning. Although researchers strongly suspected that this phenomenon, known as thermophilization, was driven by warming temperatures, their observations alone couldn't rule out other factors.