Pikas in Peril (?)

In June 2012, I joined Dr. Clinton Epps' lab as a Postdoctoral Scholar. Thus began my journey as a collaborator on the Pikas in Peril research project. My task was to combine multiple years of American pika (Ochotona princeps) occupancy surveys (led by personnel at each park) with genetic indices of connectivity (developed by Dr. Jessica Castillo, at that time a PhD student in the Epps lab) to assess population vulnerability to anthropogenic climate change in

eight national parks and monuments. The first line of inquiry involved

developing species distribution models for the pika population in each park, and

modelling shifts under future climate and carbon emissions scenarios. This work

has been completed (whew!). Currently, we are using a dynamic, spatially

explicit population modelling framework (HexSim) to test the efficacy of different

mediation scenarios (e.g., translocation, habitat creation) for conserving pikas in

the future. This work is incredibly interesting and will provide useful insight into

the managment techniques most commonly discussed when considering how best

to conserve pikas as the climate around them changes.

 

One of our primary activities right now is outreach to personnel at each of the parks where this work was conducted. With the first paper headed for early view publication in Global Change Biology in January 2016, we need to inform managers at each park of the implications of this work for the pike population they harbor. We are organizing two webinars for park personnel, as well as a more broadly available webinar for the National Park Services' Climate Change Response Program(CCRP). We also wrote this article for the CCRP newsletter. Finally, we prepaired summary briefs for each park (click on the links, below) and a press release to accompany online publication of the journal article. These are exciting times indeed!