Climate change has also impacted animal populations that depend on plants that suffered frost damage. Inouye, who has studied global climate change impact on animal and plant life for more than 20 years, suggests that the evolutionary significance of frost in the context of global warming warrants further research. Frost determines the growing range for many species of garden and agricultural plants, so changes in the distribution of frost in the future may influence where certain plants can be grown. Subfreezing temperatures can cause formation of ice crystals within or between the plant cells, which lead to physical damage and trigger physiological problems. Crop plants are often impacted by this kind of cellular death when low temperatures occur overnight.
Damage can be specific to certain life stages.
At a high altitude field site in Colorado, Inouye found that flowers and ovaries are often killed when older leaves are not affected by frost. Meanwhile, other researchers will conduct an overland crossing to study the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet during the 2000-2001 Antarctic research season, which gets underway this month. Flights by the New York Air National Guard and U.S. Air Force will deliver about 3,000 researchers and logistics personnel into McMurdo Station, NSF's scientific hub on the continent, between October and February. Aerial radar surveys also will begin this season to map Lake Vostok, a suspected body of water buried under thousands of meters of ice in the interior of the continent. The radar surveys are a precursor to possible exploration of the lake itself.