As California wildfires burn tree canopies and forest floors, plants commonly found in more southern areas of the western United States are moving in.
For example, a forest floor strewn with lupine and violets—typically found in places like Northern California and Canada—may be replaced with flowers and shrubs more often seen in drier southern climates, such as manzanita and monkey flower.
“The plants we’re finding underneath our forests are becoming more like those seen in Mexico and Southern California,” said lead author Jens Stevens, a postdoctoral scholar with the John Muir Institute of the Environment at the University of California–Davis.
