As every gardener knows, gardens are places where things are always changing. Perhaps it is not surprising then, that botanical gardens in particular provide an excellent setting for research about the impacts of a changing climate. The diverse plant collections held by botanical gardens enable a variety of observations and comparisons that both illuminate the impact of climate change in the present and facilitate predictions about future impacts and the potential for adaptation. At the same time, botanical garden staff are also often actively involved in educating and inspiring visitors to take action in support of local efforts to mitigate or respond to climate change. In this blog post, I will discuss some of the research taking place at UBC Botanical Garden that has or will contribute to scientific understanding of climate change, as well as three recent educational projects/events at the Garden designed to increase public engagement with climate research more generally.
Climate Research at UBC Botanical Garden
One of the reasons botanical gardens are so conducive to research on topics related to climate change, is that they host a great diversity of plants growing in similar conditions. This enables comparative studies of the way plants respond to changes in temperature, moisture and other conditions. Researchers may also make use of collection diversity to study questions about climate-related changes in plant functions and processes across (as opposed to between) species. Several recent studies have made use of UBC Botanical Garden’s collections in this way.
For example, researchers from the department of botany were able to measure differences in heat tolerance and carbon uptake of leaves across 177 taxa and then assess the degree to which particular traits were a product of evolutionary selection or shorter-term adaptation. This research will contribute to ongoing efforts to understand how different plants can be expected to fare in future climate scenarios. In another study, botanists measured the way broadleaf trees can lose water as the temperature rises, through changes to the waxy outer cuticle that covers leaves and stems. Given that other plant structures (i.e., leaf stomata) close up to prevent evaporation in hotter conditions, these results demonstrate a previously unexpected source of water loss in trees as the climate warms.
Botanical gardens are also excellent sites for conducting long-term research about changes in the timing of plant lifecycles (i.e., plant phenology), because they host collections that contain individual specimens that are several decades old. For example, at UBC Botanical Garden, Friends of the Garden volunteers have been tracking the budding, blooming and leafing-out of magnolia trees in the collection for over thirty years. Though this particular project has not yet produced results that show definitive changes over time, the collected data may provide an important baseline for future assessments.
Botanical garden staff and researchers are also often involved in collaborative research projects that draw on Garden resources to support integrated plant conservation efforts. For example, the Sustainable Communities Field School at UBC Botanical Garden, has initiated or contributed to numerous climate-themed projects, including research on the preservation of crop wild relatives (such as native berry and apple species), climate adaptation strategies for botanical gardens and the development of a biodiversity atlas to support the identification of ecosystems at risk in a warming climate, and provide mapping information for biodiversity planning in BC.
Finally, as biologically diverse and ecologically healthy spaces, botanical gardens provide an excellent setting for community (or citizen) science projects that monitor the abundance and diversity of birds, insects and other animals. These projects provide vital baselines against which future change can be assessed. There are several community science projects recently completed or currently underway at UBC Botanical Garden, carried out by organizations such as Nature Vancouver and the David Suzuki Foundation, as well as UBC biologists and ecologists.
Locally-based climate research provides important insights into what the impacts of climate change might be for particular species, processes and ecosystems. This information can in turn contribute to planning and decision-making around conservation efforts, the adaptation of agricultural and horticultural practices, and plant-based mitigation strategies (such as tree planting or wetland restoration). In addition, when it is presented in accessible and engaging formats, climate research can also help members of the public to understand the complexity of the problems posed by climate change.
- Ian Green introducing a group to the Douglas Fir in the Asian Garden.
- Founding committee member Marilyn Plant (left) and past committee chair Susan Hamilton (right) in front of a magnolia in full bloom. Photo by Diane Donaldson.
Engaging with Climate Change through Research
Although most people are accustomed to hearing fairly high-level, somewhat abstract interpretations of climate research (e.g., the likelihood of global average temperatures rising above a certain point), there is value, I believe, in getting people to engage more directly with the work that local researchers are doing. This research breaks a very large, global problem into smaller pieces, and often focuses on impacts or scenarios that are relevant to the plants and animals people see around them.
Last fall, UBC biology student Harjap Aulakh and I set out to explore the educational value of a handful of projects in process or recently completed at the Garden, all of which were concerned in one way or another with the impact of climate change on plants and/or botanical gardens. Harjap had a strong interest in making educational videos. We thought that if we could tell the stories of these research projects in an engaging way, it would provide an opportunity for viewers to develop more concrete and nuanced ways of thinking about climate change.
Some readers will not be surprised to hear that this task was somewhat more difficult to accomplish than expected. That is because the trade-off for making climate change concrete rather than abstract, is that it becomes enormously complex. This creates a difficult translation problem. The questions that help scientists to understand the mechanisms of adaptation in plants, for example, or to gather the information required to make predictions about future scenarios, rely on concepts unfamiliar to most viewers, and a highly specialized vocabulary. It was very time-consuming for Harjap to generate summaries that were comprehensible to a general audience. There was also, we found, a certain mismatch between the kind of care these summaries required and our medium of choice. In the era of TikTok and YouTube, viewers are accustomed to narratives that are fast-paced and definitive, as opposed to the more nuanced and complex stories that researchers uncover in their work.
Despite its challenges, this project deepened my own thinking about climate change in important ways. Being exposed to the kinds of questions that researchers are asking helped me to see things in more pragmatic terms. For example, as Harjap learned in the second episode he filmed, there is a lot that may be gained in better understanding the chemical composition of the waxy cuticle that helps protect plants from water loss. However, as this research implies, climate change is not a problem that will be solved quickly; it will require an enormous amount of painstaking, relatively unglamorous work by researchers in a variety of disciplines. A lot of the questions those researchers are asking do have answers, but they are going to take a long time to find.
For me, the process of learning about climate research is illuminating in a way that can inspire, if not always optimism, then at least a more nuanced and pragmatic way of thinking about climate change. I invite you to explore this kind of learning yourself by taking a look at Harjap’s videos, here.
Climate Knowledge Exchange Events at UBC Botanical Garden
This brings me to an event that we organized in last May, inspired by my work with Harjap, but employing a very different medium—that of conversation. Climate Conversations was a community-oriented forum in which interdisciplinary panels of researchers presented brief summaries of their climate research and then answered questions from the audience. There was also a keynote presentation from climate fiction author Lisa Brideau, a climate-focused tour of the garden and a brainstorming session on different forms of climate action.
On the whole, the conversations I took part in or overheard that day were wide-ranging and inclusive, circling between the scientific, the political and the personal, and back again. (Summaries of these conversations are documented, along with a series of beautiful illustrations by artist Karen Lin, in a zine available for purchase in The Shop in the Garden). This event provided a unique and memorable opportunity for participants to practice speaking about the complex realities of climate change—something that can be surprisingly difficult to do in everyday life, where we tend to be focused on more immediate and mundane concerns.
Following up on the success of Climate Conversations, the Garden also took the opportunity to co-host a related event in October. Climate Talks was organized by Kerstin Höntsch, a visiting scholar from Germany, with support from UBC Botanical Garden and several other partners. This event took a somewhat different approach to Climate Conversations, featuring a series of individual presentations from a mix of local, American and European presenters (as opposed to locally-based interdisciplinary panels). It aimed, however, for a similar level of accessibility, providing audience members with information about climate impacts and avenues for action across a variety of fields. (Stay tuned for a more comprehensive blog post from Dr. Höntsch, and a Climate Talks comic).
Across both these events, we were pleased to discover a diverse group of well-informed citizens eager to learn about climate change and take action in a variety of ways. Though what we see in the news and social media sometimes suggest otherwise, a substantial proportion of Canadians remain concerned about climate change and want their governments to take more action to mitigate and adapt to it. At UBC Botanical Garden, we remain committed to supporting research and educational activities that inspire and sustain climate action.
As winter approaches and my colleagues and I make plans for the new year, I invite you to stay tuned for further climate engagement opportunities at UBC Botanical Garden, including a second iteration of Climate Conversations, to be held in April 2026. Learning about the complex but ultimately very pragmatic work that scientists and many others are doing to understand and motivate action on climate change, is an excellent way to cultivate a sense of hopefulness, and the ability to speak out whenever we have the chance.
Written by:
Erin Despard
Writer in Residence
UBC Botanical Garden