Ohio’s buckeye trees may migrate north

A group doesn’t want the tree to move to Michigan, the home of Ohio State University’s biggest rival.

Associated Press

The fight is on in Ohio to save the buckeye tree from heading north to, of all places, rival Michigan.

Environmentalists said Friday global warming threatens to push the growing range for the iconic Ohio buckeye tree farther north.

Although found in other parts of the Midwest, the buckeye tree is the official state tree of Ohio, and the buckeye nut provided the name for sports teams at Ohio State University, whose football rival is the University of Michigan.

Save The Buckeye, a coalition of environmental activists and outdoor enthusiasts, has a billboard in Columbus warning about the fate of the buckeye tree, and backers plan to hold rallies during football tailgating events.

Tom Bullock, an advocate for the Pew Environment Group in Ohio, insisted there is an urgency.

“People had thought of global warming as something far away, affecting polar bears,” Bullock said. “If we don’t get started now we will reduce the opportunity to reduce global warming and curb its worst effects.”

The billboard next to the Buckeye Hall of Fame and Cafe and along a highway near Ohio Stadium says: “Michigan Buckeye? Global Warming is Sending Ohio’s Buckeye North.”

David Lytle, chief of the Division of Forestry in the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said the campaign has merit because it calls attention to ecological issues.

“I think it’s a lighthearted way of addressing a serious subject,” he said.

Lytle said healthy adult buckeye trees can tolerate a wide climate range, although seedlings are more sensitive. Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan could eventually give buckeye trees a more comfortable habitat, he said.

Football fans may not want to hear this, but Michigan already has some buckeye trees.

Donald R. Zak, an ecology professor at the University of Michigan, said it’s not unusual to find a buckeye tree in southern Michigan, where the climate and soil is like that in northern Ohio.

The Great Lakes region has experienced climate change often, including when glaciers shaped the landscape and then pulled back. But global warming presents a real concern now, Zak said.

“Humans are the cause of this warming, and that’s no longer a debate among scientists,” he said.

But whether buckeye trees will migrate north is not an easy question.

“Today, we’ve fragmented the landscape with cities and roads, and that represents barriers to migration for plants and animals, and some places are deforested and turned into agricultural land,” Zak said.