Plants in Mesoamerican cloud forests climb mountains to escape climate change

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https://english.elpais.com/climate/2025-03-09/plants-in-mesoamerican-cloud-forests-climb-mountains-to-escape-climate-change.html

Plants in Mesoamerican cloud forests climb mountains to escape climate change

MARÍA MÓNICA MONSALVE S.
Bogotá - MAR 08, 2025 - 23:40 EST

Plants are also seeking to escape climate change. So much so that in the cloud forests of Mesoamerica, a place where the landscape is shrouded in mist, plant species have moved between 1.8 and 2.7 meters per year since 1979. The climate at the altitude where they had lived for decades was no longer suitable for them and, like any animal or human looking for a new refuge in the face of a disturbing change, plants have very slowly begun to climb the mountains.

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The changes in climate conditions are trapping the most sensitive plants. They cannot go down, because for some it is already too hot. And even if they start to move, the risk is that they will not survive in colder areas either. On the other hand, sometimes they are also threatened by deforestation.

Furthermore, not all species behave in the same way. “What has made me think the most is that only a third, and not all, plants are moving,” says Ramírez. The researcher makes a curious but pedagogical similarity to what happens with a multitude of cockroaches when a light is turned on. Each one runs off in a different direction, in survival mode. The difference is that the relationship between one species of plant and another, or its interaction with the bushes or ferns with which they have symbiosis, has been forged to reach a perfect balance for thousands of years. And climate change is breaking that.

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