Climate Change: Wildlife changes in the Colorado Rockies

The Face of Climate Change: Walloped Wildlife and Flowers in the Co...

None of the effects on plants were good. The plants started shooting up on cue, but lacking snowy protective layers, they were vulnerable to late frosts, which killed leaves, buds and flowers on already well-developed wild flowers.

Freeze-dried Larskpur blossoms, victims of frost

... stunted vegetation. Normally six-foot tall cow parsnip were blooming at two feet tall. Other wild flowers were blooming at half their height.

The effects of the floral devastation rippled upward into the larger grazers.