Sugar Maple Tree Evolution

CLAIM: Select the BEST claim explaining the MOST LIKELY outcome of sugar maple tree evolution in response to climate change.

• The sugar maple trees are likely to go extinct due to climate change.

• The sugar maple trees are likely to develop into different species (speciation) due to climate change.

• The sugar maple trees are likely to experience natural selection and adapt to climate change.

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EVIDENCE: Select THREE pieces of evidence from the first article "Climate Change Could Mean Less Maple Syrup For Your Pancakes" that support the claim. (pick 3 answers)

• Climate change has led to warmer, drier growing seasons, stunting the growth of sugar maples.

• "The biggest trees will still be there, but won't be growing as much and the little saplings won't survive, [so] once the older trees start dying, there will be no new trees to replace them," she says.

• Research published in 2017 also found that climate change could cause sugar maple habitat to decline.

• For sap to flow, temperatures need to be below freezing at night and above freezing during the day. Sugaring season used to kick off around March but has started as early as January in the last few seasons because the weather is warmer earlier.

• "We need to pay attention to climate change but when we look at what maple producers have done to overcome the impacts of climate change, it's clear that they are adjusting," Childs says.

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EVIDENCE: Select THREE pieces of evidence from the second article "Not So Sweet: Climate Change Means Slow-Growing Sugar Maples, Study Finds" that support the claim. (pick 3 answers)

• The researchers note that warmer winters may have some benefits, like lower heating bills and longer growing seasons. And, adds Templer, maple sugar production has been able to keep up with climate change so far.

• It may seem paradoxical, but sugar maple trees need snow to stay warm and grow. Each winter, a deep blanket of snow — 8 inches deep or more — covers about 65 percent of northeastern sugar maples. Without this insulating snow, the soil freezes deeper and longer, damaging the trees' shallow roots.

• "If temperatures keep increasing and the snowpack keeps shrinking, it suggests that our maple forests are going to not grow as much...."

• The researchers also found that the amount of northeastern forest with snowpack could shrink by 95 percent by the end of the century — from 33,000 square miles to just 2,000....

• Templer says as forests in the U.S. pull carbon dioxide out of the air and store it in trees, plants and soil, they can offset somewhere between 5 to 30 percent of America's carbon dioxide emissions.

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REASONING: Explain how your selected evidence supports your claim to make an argument that explains WHY the sugar maple trees will undergo your selected outcome of evolution (extinction/speciation/natural selection). Use a MINIMUM of 3 sentences.

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