Interview with Dr. Chad Scholes

21 February 2008

On the 14th of February our team interviewed Dr. Chad Scholes, PhD. Dr. Scholes is the academic advisor of one our team members. He has taught at Rockhurst University for the past six years. He currently teaches General Biology II, Plant Biology and Biology Field Trip, as well as Environmental Science, which he team-teaches with Dr. Chapman, Associate Professor of Chemistry.

Dr. Scholes research focus is plant ecology. He received his undergraduate and doctorate degrees at South Dakota State University and his masters degree at the University of South Dakota.

Our interview began with a few points we had termed "questions of dismissal". As the name suggests, these were questions regarding whether global climate change is real and how much of it can be attributed to human activity. He began by offering us an article from Newsweek which demonstrated the ongoing conflict between the efforts of mainstream climate researchers and "skeptics", many of whom are privately-funded by interested industries (Sharon Begley, "The Truth about Denial," Newsweek, 13 August 2007, 20-29.). Dr. Scholes added, "…there is a scientific consensus…" that GCC (global climate change) is occurring and that human activities are the major cause of it. Further, the main question now facing the public is how much change will be allowed to occur, and how rapidly.

The remainder of our time together was spent discussing what the evolutionary impacts of GCC might be. Dr. Scholes continued, framing the problem inherent in tying these two questions together. While evolution generally occurs across vast periods of time, GCC can only be roughly predicted across the next 20 to 200 years -- the greater the range of the model, the less certainty it offers.

Thus, his touchstone was one of the only examples of understood "short-term evolution", extinctions and their effects.

This evolutionary trend is likely when organisms fail to adapt to a new set of environmental conditions. GCC provides these changes. By natural selection, organisms are adapted to what their environment has been, not what it will be. We can speak of these adaptations as responses to temperature, length of seasons, availability of groundwater, et cetera. GCC presents populations with variations far greater than the historical norm.

And as GCC challenges these populations, the niches left vacant will most likely be filled by what Dr. Scholes termed "opportunistic species". These opportunists could be native species with great fecundity and strong colonizing instincts or invasive species, those accidentally introduced from another biome.

Dr. Scholes offered us the example of mountain-top biomes. He likened these to islands where cooler conditions have allowed the continued viability of Pleistocene epoch populations. As the accumulation of ice in these regions decreases due to GCC, the "mountain as an island" is no longer protected, encouraging extinction.

Another evolutionary trend, he added, are the effects of changing growth zones. He offered us an example in the Vermont state quarter, which features a Maple tree offering sap for syrup. “Trees generally do not respond well to changes in the length of seasons”, he said. He also emphasized that as air currents bring warm air farther North, trees like these might only survive in Canada – effects like this may also cause a loss of agricultural land in the American lower middle-west, where Rockhurst University is located.

Finally, another evolutionary trend is how GCC is altering migratory habits. Flying animals, such as insects and birds, perform ecosystem services for many of the populations they encounter, such as plant pollination. From our human perspective, the pollination of fruit plants is a fine example, as we consume their offerings. As GCC alters existing migratory patterns, the members of many ecological communities will be affected, either by the introduction of a new species or the absence of one depended upon.

Ultimately, GCC is and will continue to cause both extinctions and movement. Whether a population migrates, exists across a different range or ceases to exist entirely, all organisms they once interacted with are affected. In most cases, the ecosystem services a species provides is not thoroughly understood… the evolutionary impacts of GCC are thus more difficult to predict than climate change itself.