Climate change in mountains dramatically effects elks, plants, and birds

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120110140235.htm

According to the U.S. Geological Survey and University of Montana study the decline in snowpack in mountains in Arazona has caused a dramatic change to the plant and bird population. In this deciduous environment the plants and animals would normally thrive on areas in a mountain that had a lot of snow pack. The elk population would not be able to reach those bird and plant populations in the winter due to the snow pack. But, for the last 22 years the snow pack has been decreasing, which caused the elks to be able to go to places they couldn't go due to the snow pack. The elk now eat the plants and disrupt the bird nests that thrived in snow pack areas of the mountain. The elk eating the plants and disrupting the birds nests causes both of those populations to decrease in size and for some birds to not nest in the area, which was once an area the birds would naturally nest in. It would cause those birds to seek other areas of the mountain, that had snow pack, to thrive off of and to be away from the elk. All of this occurs due to the climate in some parts of the world, especially this one in Arizona, changing and becoming warmer over the past 22 years. The researchers do not link this to global warming, but do admit that the warmer climate change has caused these problems to occur.

To me this does not relate to global warming, but is a sign that the mountains of Arizona need to be better taken care of so the climate can go back to what it once was. If it doesn't change I can hypothesize that the area will become completely different and cause species that once thrived their to not exist their anymore. Also, it can cause the environment to die out, since species that once helped benefit the environment would not exist to fill in the gap the environment needs to be able to co-exist properly.

A quote by USGS Montana Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit scientist Thomas Martin about the climate change-"This study demonstrates that the indirect effects of climate on plant communities may be just as important as the effects of climate-change-induced mismatches between migrating birds and food abundance because plants, including trees, provide the habitat birds need to survive"