Trees are migrating because of climate change

it's a known fact that trees have roots and hence they don't move. For the most part, "tree migrations are moisture related," Songlin Fei, the associate professor at Purdue's University's department of forestry and natural resources, who has studied this phenomenon in recent years, said to Nexus Media. Key findings of the study Fei analyzed the movement of 86 tree species from across the Eastern United States between 1980 and 2015 using field data obtained from the US Forest Service He found that 73 per cent of tree species shifted to the west, while 62 per cent moved pole-ward "The majority of the species moving westward are broadleaf species that can better handle flood and drought, and have a large seed mass, which improves the seedling's ability to survive," he said "One example of westward shift species is Scarlet Oak. Miss Scarlett was 'gone with the wind,' but Scarlet Oak is 'gone with the rain," he added Researchers compared the distribution of trees in 1980 and 2015, calculating the distance and direction of the trees' movement During the three decades and more covered by the study, the mean annual temperature in the eastern United States, where they collected the data, rose around 0.3 degrees F on average, Fei said The northern areas of that region saw among the largest temperature increases, he added Precipitation patterns in the regions also changed during those years, as increasing heat spurred in widespread droughts, another reason for trees to gravitate toward the rain, he said The scientists' initial findings appeared in a study published in the journal Science Advances last year. In fact, the transition was gradual "Species, on average, moved about 10 miles per decade, or about one county during the study period," Fei said The trees have picked up on the trends driven by climate change, moving from regions getting less rainfall than in the past to those that are getting more Even though the Southeast still gets more rainfall than the Midwest, it's been receiving less in recent years than its historical average, he said At the same time, rainfall has been increasing in the Midwest.