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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: elpolvo who wrote (11898)	11/6/2000 9:28:50 AM
From: T L Comiskey	Respond to of 65232

Dusty...Hits the Road Encroaching Desert Study: Southwestern Desert Will Creep Northward The Associated Press A L B U Q U E R Q U E, N.M., Nov. 2 — Vegetation from New Mexico’s southern deserts will spread northward into the Albuquerque area over the next century and perhaps extend even farther, climbing local mountain slopes, a team of Nevada researchers says. The research, reported in the British journal Nature this week by a team led by Stanley Smith, suggests the creosote and mesquite bushes of the southern deserts are likely to benefit more from increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide than are Albuquerque-area native plants like sagebrush and juniper. The researchers from the U.S. government’s Nevada Test Site say higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere favor non-native grass and shrub species. They say global warming has “the potential to accelerate the fire cycle, reduce biodiversity and alter ecosystem function in the deserts of western North America.” Warmer Weather End Frost Barrier Smith said that includes New Mexico, as far as desert shrubs are concerned. Carbon dioxide is used in plants for growth and energy in a way similar to the way animals use oxygen. The two cycles complement each other because animals exhale carbon dioxide and plants give off oxygen. “I think it and other studies we’ve done here suggest that these desert species will take advantage by moving further northward past the Isleta Pueblo, along the lava flows, up and across the West Mesa and Taylor Ranch area, west of Albuquerque, and eventually further northward,” said Bob Parmenter, an ecologist at the University of New Mexico, commenting on the Nevada study. The researchers believe that decades of overgrazing have favored the invaders, as well, but that severe “killer frosts have stopped the northward march” of the shrubs. If warmer weather prevails in coming century, that frost barrier would be removed, Parmenter said. These species have already reached the southern border of Isleta Pueblo, and evidence is strong and growing that conditions will favor their continued expansion northward, he said. In August, a World Wildlife Fund study reported that New Mexico is among the top 20 states whose ecosystems are significantly threatened by global warming.