LB 9-97 - Predicted impacts of climate change on wild and commercial berry habitats will have food security, conservation, and agricultural implications

Background/Question/Methods:

Genus Vaccinium includes culturally and economically important edible berry producing shrubs with over 500 species identified, such as blueberry and cranberry. They grow on various habitats ranging from circumpolar such as subarctic and tundra zones, to alpine zones like montane coniferous forests, northern boreal and temperate coniferous and deciduous forests, as well as relatively humid areas including lakeshores and muskegs. Berries provide food for humans and animals, as well as leaves being growing target for medicinal benefits. Many Vaccinium species in the wild form the understory community; thus, understanding their habitat range and its potential shift in the future is highly relevant to forest ecology and biodiversity conservation. Our aim was to predict how native North American Vaccinium species will perform under climate change. We chose four study species: two wild northern species, V. vits-idaea and V. uliginosum, one wild southern species: V. oxycoccos, and one commercial cranberry species: V macrocarpon. Maximum entropy model was used to predict the habitat suitability of each species in North America under the CMIP6 shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) projected to 2041-2060 and 2061-2080. We hypothesized their habitat range to shift following the global warming trend.

Results/Conclusions:

Our model predicted that Northern species would retain most of its suitable habitat area by progressing towards higher latitude and higher altitude while Southern species would significantly contract in suitable habitat area with little progression. This could lead to potential competition between the two Northern species studied, as their habitats were predicted to increase in overlap by almost double. Furthermore, increased overlap with conserved and protected areas especially in northern Canada could disturb more vulnerable species currently inhabiting the region. Another interesting finding was the differential impact of variables on model performance. Southern species indicated over 50% dependence on mean annual temperature and precipitation variable, whereas Northern species showed small dependence on a greater number of variables including soil and topographical properties. This may indicate the climate change resilience of Northern species via enhanced abiotic stress tolerance such as temperature and water. Combined with the results from commercial cranberry farms where most of these locations (particularly in the States) were predicted to be unsuited in our future projections, our models may suggest the potential use of Northern Vaccinium species as agricultural crops or resources for climate change resilience traits that could be incorporated in future breeding efforts.