Development of a Climate Change Index of Stress Using Future Projected BEC: Proof of Concept for the Nadina TSA

Immigration of climatically-suited species could lead to recovery, but is not expected to keep pace with climate change (Aitken et al. 2008, McLachlan et al. 2005), thus future plant communities may remain depauperate for some time in comparison to present-day analogs. Hence, the difference between current and projected future plant communities could be a useful indicator of ecosystem sensitivity to climate change, at least during the period of adaptation. This report describes a pilot study designed to test methods of comparing plant communities across different climate-change scenarios.