While the iconic Haleakalā silversword plant made a strong recovery from early 20th-century threats, it has now entered a period of substantial climate-related decline. New research published this week warns that global warming may have severe consequences for the silversword in its native habitat. Known for its striking rosette（莲座丛）, the silversword grows for 20-90 years before the single reproductive event at the end of its life, at which time it produces a large (up to six feet tall) inflorescence（花） with as many as 600 flower heads. The plant was in jeopardy¹ in the early 1900s due to animals eating the plants and visitors gathering² them. With successful management, including legal protection and the physical exclusion³ of hoofed⁴ animals, the species made a strong recovery, but since the mid-1990s it has entered a period of substantial decline. A strong association of annual population growth rates with patterns of precipitation suggests the plants are undergoing increasingly frequent and lethal⁵ water stress. Local climate data confirm trends towards warmer and drier conditions on the mountain, which the researchers warn will create a bleak⁶ outlook for the threatened silverswords if climate trends continue.

 

"The silversword example foreshadows trouble for diversity in other biological hotspots," said Dr. Paul Krushelnycky, a biologist with the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, and principal investigator⁷ for the project, "and it also illustrates⁸ how even well-protected and relatively⁹ abundant species may succumb¹⁰（屈服，死） to climate-induced stresses."

 

"The silversword is an amazing story of selective biological adaptation of this distant cousin of the daisy to the high winds and sometimes freezing temperatures on the high slopes and thin soils of Haleakalā volcano," said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. "Despite the successful efforts of the National Park Service to protect this very special plant from local disturbance¹¹ from humans and introduced species, we now fear that these actions alone may be insufficient¹² to secure this plant's future. No part of our planet is immune from the impacts of climate change."

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