Long-term research reveals how climate change is playing out in real ecosystems

NORTH WOODSTOCK, N.H., December 1, 2012—Around the world, the effects of global climate change are increasingly evident and difficult to ignore. However, evaluations of the local effects of climate change are often confounded by natural and human induced factors that overshadow the effects of changes in climate on ecosystems. In the December issue of the journal BioScience, a group of scientists writing on long-term studies of watershed and natural elevation gradients at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire and in the surrounding region report a number of surprising results that may shed more light on the complex nature of climate change.

According to Peter Groffman, one of the lead authors and a principal investigator at the Hubbard Brook Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program, these studies highlight the value of long-term integrated research to assessments of the subtle effects of changing climate on complex ecosystems.