Environment
Climate change threatens rare orchid
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By KEVIN DUFFY
Capital News Service
LANSING — As climate change threatens wet landscapes with persistent and intense droughts, natural resource managers are looking for ways to preserve the remaining habitats of the rare species such as the orchid known as white lady’s slipper. It’s not easy. “There’s a big problem with managing climate sensitive species,” said Sue Galatowitsch, a professor of fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology at the University of Minnesota. That problem – the uncertainty of the future climate – was the focus of a recent study of how best to protect the small white lady’s slipper. In the Great Lakes region, the lady’s slipper is rare, threatened or endangered in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and New York.