"The pace of adaptation is too slow to keep up with climate change," said Julie Etterson, a University of Minnesota Duluth Biology professor and researcher.

Etterson's research reveals that warming temps are stressing our forests.

"We have been thinking about what we can do now to help our forests transition as climate changes around them," she said.

And if that help doesn't arrive soon, she and other researchers say the deep, dark boreal forests we know in northern Minnesota could become mostly grasslands within the next 50 years.