Northeast CASC Research Ecologist Toni Lyn Morelli and former Northeast CASC Fellow Alexej Sirén were recently featured on Ask MIT Climate, a climate-focused podcast of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. To a backdrop of chirping Boreal chickadees and crunching snow, the episode joins the researchers in New Hampshire’s White Mountains as they explore how local species are responding to a warming climate.
 

In this region, many snow and cold-adapted species are creeping northward towards the cooler temperatures they evolved in. Broadly speaking, an upslope, poleward movement aligns with the researchers’ expectations about how species will shift their ranges in response to increasing temperatures. But species range shifts aren’t always so predictable. In some cases, Dr. Morelli and her team found that species are moving towards the equator, or not at all. Sometimes it’s not purely the climate that drives species movements, but rather habitat availability, competition with other species, or a reaction to human-altered landscapes.
  

Regardless of what drives these shifts, changes in species ranges have consequences for human communities, including increased exposure to disease-carrying insects and the erosion of culturally, historically, and economically important foods and practices. In the episode, Dr. Morelli offers some ways to help soften the impacts of these changes, including conserving climate refugia (places in the world that are buffered from the effects of climate change), increasing habitat connectivity, and continuing to monitor species movements, whatever directions they may take.
  

Listen to the full podcast episode by Ask MIT Climate, 'The reshuffling of life on earth'.