TREES SHIFT UPWARDS AS CLIMATE WARMS, DATA SHOW by D Perlman. SFGate, 12 June 2010 : Link

What I find amazing about this is that I often think it takes long for nature to adapt to change.   According to this article it actually happens a lot quicker than we think.    It is faster than the pace companies sometimes take to adapt to a changing business environment.    ....well maybe its because at least the trees know that their environment is changing...

'The world's warming climate is forcing trees and the plant life around them into new territories where the environment is more like the areas where they normally thrive, scientists report from a new global survey.

Some forests and groups of vegetation have begun moving upward to higher elevations, or northward to higher latitudes to meet the climate change, while others in areas that are drying are shifting southward toward greater sources of moisture, the researchers say.

In California, for example, a detailed forest census along the west side of the Sierra in the Tahoe National Forest by UC Berkeley scientists found that the warming climate is shifting growth patterns uphill among many species of shrubs, oaks, firs and pines that for hundreds of years have been thriving at lower elevations.

Similar forest changes are being found on every continent by biologists working around the world, according to a report published this week in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography. '...

...'In their survey of observed changes in vegetation reported by other scientists around the world, Gonzalez and his colleagues noted that trees and shrubs in northern Africa's Sahel region have been dying where drought has increased as the climate warms, and have moved further south where rainfall is more abundant.'...   [36%]