Summer Maximum Temperature and the Abundance of Collema

Figure summer-maximum-temperature-abundance-collema

This figure appears in the Our Changing Planet: The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2007 report.

A negative correlation existed between summer maximum temperature (mean daily maximum temperature during June) and subsequent abundance of the lichen Collema, which dominates the biological soil crust in many semi-arid western ecosystems. Even after 2 cooler years, the lichen had not recovered from the warm period of 1997 to 2003. Credit: J. Belnap, S.L. Phillips, and T.T. Troxler, U.S. Geological Survey.

Free to use with credit to the original figure source.