1 . Most of Florida is a flat peninsula (半岛) with water on three sides and houses built as close to the shoreline as possible. For one thing we are more frequently the target of hurricanes than any other state; for another, our geography makes us more easily to be hurt by rising seas.

A news story about climate change in Florida popped up. Historically, scientists believed mangroves (红树林) didn’t live farther north than Cedar Key, in the middle of Florida’s Big Bend. But that’s not the case anymore. Samantha Chapman, a biology professor who’s been studying how Florida’s mangroves have been migrating (迁移), found them up near the St Mary’s River, which forms the border between Florida and Georgia. It seems that they soon be marching through Georgia and becoming a thriving new component of coastal habitats.

But a coastal biologist named Blair Witherington took issue on the matter. The mangroves weren’t spreading into a new territory, he pointed out. They were entering areas that had been classified as saltmarsh (盐沼), where the landscape was dominated by cordgrass. Saltmarsh and mangrove create very different habitats that attract a very different set of animals. “When one community replaces the other, this diversity is lost,” Witherington remarked. Changing the animals’ habitat has the potential to influence the whole food chain, making a widespread difference.

What was driving this? “Mangroves can survive a short freeze, but not a prolonged, hard freeze. By combing through the weather records kept by the state’s orange juice industry, biologists have been able to document that Florida is having fewer prolonged hard freezes than it used to. Then the mangroves have adapted by expanding their range.” Samantha explained.

“They’ve adapted in another way, too. Not only are the mangroves spreading into areas that once were unfriendly to them, but they have also changed their life cycle to speed things up. Normally it takes them about 15 years of growth before they start making seeds. Now, as they get into these marshes, they’re producing seeds when they’ re only a couple of years old,” Samantha said.

The problem with having too many mangroves by the sea is that climate change may overwhelm them. A study by the US Geological Survey said sea level rise could wipe out mangroves all along the Florida coast. So, here’s the question we humans have to consider: Nature is finding ways to adapt to how we’ve changed the climate. What are we doing to adapt to it? Or at least slow it down?

2 . The rapid pace of global warming and its effects on habitats raise the question of whether species are able to keep up so that they remain in suitable living conditions. Some animals can move fast to adjust to a quickly changing climate. Plants, being less mobile, rely on means such as seed dispersal (传播) by animals, wind or water to move to new areas, but this redistribution typically occurs within one kilometer of the original plant. Writing in Nature, Juan P. González-Varo sheds light on the potential capacity of migratory (迁徙的) birds to aid seed dispersal.

González-Varo and colleagues report how plants might be able to keep pace with rapid climate change through the help of migrating birds. They analyzed an impressive data set of 949 different seed-dispersal interactions between bird and plant communities, together with data on entire fruiting times and migratory patterns of birds across Europe.

The authors hypothesized (假定) that the direction of seed migration depends on how the plants interact with migratory birds, the frequency of these interactions or the number of bird species that might transport seeds from each plant species.

Perhaps the most striking feature of these inferred seed movements is the observation that 35 percent of plant species across European communities, which are closely related on the phylogenetic tree (进化树谱), might benefit from long-distance dispersal by the northward journey of migratory birds. This particular subset (小组) of plants tends to fruit over a long period of time, or has fruits that persist over the winter. This means that the ability of plants to keep up with climate change could be shaped by their evolutionary history – implying that future plant communities in the Northern Hemisphere (半球) will probably come from plant species that are phylogenetically closely related and that have migrated from the south.

This study provides a great example of how migratory birds might assist plant redistribution to new locations that would normally be difficult for them to reach on their own, and which might offer a suitable climate.

5 . A research group, led by a scientist Professor Lilach Hadany at Tel Aviv University, have conducted a six-year experiment, proving that plants talk, particularly in certain stressful situations.

Plants were put in a sound-proof chamber (隔音室) and were recorded by two microphones. Some plants were in need of water, others were cut, and a control group were left undamaged. The researchers used an AI algorithm to separate the sounds successfully identifying the differences between the sounds made depending on whether they were dry or cut.

On average, the human ear can hear sounds up to around 20kHz, but the sounds produced by plants are in the 40-80kHz region, far beyond our hearing capabilities. That doesn’t mean they can’t be heard. “White unnoticed to the human ear, the sounds sent out by plants can probably be heard by various animals, such as bats, mice, and insects,” Hadany tells us. Though this has yet to be proven, it’s possible that these animals use this information for their benefit, choosing which plants to eat, for example.

While farming has become a science itself, there’s still a lot of estimation (估计) involved. If farmers were able to receive exact information directly from their crop, they could start a much more efficient method of care. The study thinks that more proper irrigation (灌溉) could save up to 50% of water cost and greatly improve the product. “In times when more and more areas are exposed to drought due to climate change, efficient water use becomes even more necessary, for both food safety and natural environment.” They would also be able to better identify and control disease in a crop.

The sounds sent out by plants are not cries for help, but rather a by-product of material stress rather than communication. Just as Hadany notes, “Obviously, a wonderful field of flowers can be a rather noisy place. It’s just that we can’t hear the sounds.”

8 . Succulents (多肉植物) are plants with parts that are thick and fleshy, usually to stay wet in hot and dry climates. They are easy to grow well.

Step 1

Get the pots ready. The actual pot size will depend on the size of the plant, neither too large nor too small.

*There should be 3 or more holes at the bottom of the pot. Clay (陶土) pots are the best.

*Fil1 of the pot with gravel (沙砾).

Step 2

Prepare your soil. If you don't want to use one of the ready-made succulent mixes available on the market, prepare your own.

Step 3

Succulents prefer bright light; therefore, place the pots in an area where there is plenty of sunlight. An ideal sun exposure will be from early morning to 12 noon during the summer.

Step 4

Fill the pots up to the desired level with the potting mix so that the tip of the roots will touch it Then, hold the plant carefully at the center of the pot, allow the roots to hang inside and place the potting mix loosely around the roots until it covers them up.

Step 5

Water your plant. The first watering will be done on the third day of planting. The plant needs the soil to be dry for the first two days so that any harm to the root system can heal.

Step 6

Fertilize (施肥), during the summer growing season, as you would with other houseplants. Stop fertilizing entirely during the winter. The nitrogen content (含氮量) of the fertilizer should always be very low.

9 . Every spring, in regions at high altitudes around the world, one of Earth’s tiniest migrations takes place. The migrants are single-celled green algae (海藻); they are relatives to plants growing in the sea, but instead of living in the sea they live in snow. They spend the winter deep in the snow. In the spring, they wake and swim up through flowing streams of melted snow to the surface, dividing and photosynthesizing (进行光合作用) as they go. Then, at the top, they turn red. This creates what scientists call pink snow.

The color comes from astaxanthin (虾青素), a substance that gives some living things their reddish color. The algae produce astaxanthin as a form of sun protection; it absorbs UV light, thereby warming the organisms and thus melting the surrounding snow. “The melting helps them a lot,” said Roman Dial, a biologist at Alaska Pacific University. “The moment there is liquid water on the snow, the algae start growing.”

Pink snow is a perfectly natural phenomenon, but in an age of disappearing glaciers (冰川), it is also problematic. Last year, scientists discovered that the algae turned the snow surface dark, reducing the amount of sunlight reflected by some glaciers in Scandinavia—and increasing the amount of sunlight absorbed—by 30%. The result, as Dial and his colleagues demonstrated in this month’s issue of Nature Geoscience, is faster melting. As in other parts of the warming planet—particularly the Arctic, where scientists fear that melting permafrost (永冻土层) may lead to further climatic changes. Ice sheets are already being darkened by dust and ash, which makes the process of melting faster and provides nutrients for algae growth. As the organisms multiply, they melt even more snow, which allows them to increase in their population again. “It spreads more rapidly than people realize, once it gets established,” Dial said.

Snow algae need snow; when that’s gone, which seems to be the direction of things, the snow algae will go, too. Before the snow algae disappear, though, and while there’s still some glacier left, it’s entirely possible that the last snow we’ll see on Earth will be pink or even red, a wound on Earth.