PubTalk 11/2012 — Understanding Climate-Wildlife Relationships

-- are American pikas harbingers of changing conditions?

by USGS Research Ecologist Erik Beever

• American pikas are denizens of rocky talus and lava-flow habitats in mountain ecosystems across western North America
• Mountain environments, cauldrons of climatic harshness, exhibit sharp topographic, vegetative, and climatic gradients
• Pikas are providing scientists with a model for assessing species vulnerability to warming temperatures
• Are other species and indicators in the animal kingdom equally sensitive to changing climate conditions and warming temperatures?