Extreme cold and snow across the South isn't a threat to most native plants and animals, experts say
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About 8 inches (20 centimeters) of snow covered the ground and plants outside Braden Doucet’s Lafayette, Louisiana, home Tuesday afternoon. It's also cold. Much colder than normal. The temperature Tuesday night is expected to sink to 12 degrees F (minus 11 Celsius) and evening lows are predicted to be below freezing through Friday.
For people, the freeze and snow have brought most things to a standstill. But wildlife natives like cypress trees and prairie plants, and cold-blooded gators and snakes, should be alright. “I’ve never seen snow like this in Louisiana, for sure,” said Doucet, a graduate student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette who works in a climate change adaptation lab for plants.
“You might see a couple dead plants, but as a rule, most plants should be fine," Doucet added. "The individual plants, themselves, haven’t seen this level of snowfall and extreme weather, but the populations of these native plants have been here for millennia. They have evolved in this ecological context. In terms of a plant population, a hundred years is nothing. Their genetics have good memory.”.
Phyllis Baudoin Griffard, a retired biology professor at the school, says its all about “evolution and adaptions” when it comes to plants. “While this has been a (once in a) hundred-year snow — this is a big deal and we’re all just delighting in it — biology works on a bigger scale," Griffard said. "All the species of plants have experienced extremes. On the surface, things are going to look beat up. It will look dead, just like up North, but it will bounce back.”.
