The American pika: a model species to study biotic responses to climate change

Philippe Henry, November 21st 2011

The American pika: a model species to study biotic responses to climate change

Philippe HenryNRESi Colloquium SeriesSeptember 27th 2013, UNBC, PG, BC.

American pika biology & climate change

UBC-O/UofC research in BC Coast Mnts

Applications to Management and future directions

Enough time for questions

What is a Pika?

A small relative of rabbits and hares:Order lagomorpha

Two species in North America

Collared pika

- Postglacial re-colonization occurred South to North

- Not North to south as previously thought

- Definitive taxonomybased on:

mtDNA

Vocalizations

Morphometrics

Range retraction- 30% extirpated- 145 m upslope

migration/decade

Drivers of extirpation- Snowpack ~ cold temperature- Summer temperature- Elevation

EvolutionVolume 63, Issue 11, pages 2848-2863, 3 AUG 2009 DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00803.xhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00803.x/full#f5

Elevation gradients: The Hill

Henry et al. (2012) Northwest Science

Noninvasive sampling

Henry & Russello (2011) European Journal of Wildlife Research; Henry et al. (2011) Journal of

Visualized Experiments

Noninvasive sampling

Henry & Russello (2011) European Journal of Wildlife Research; Henry et al. (2011) Journal of

Visualized Experiments

Noninvasive sampling…

Noninvasive sampling…

…in action

Hair samples = DNA

Hill LOW Elevation

Environmental drivers

MAP, PAS, Tmax, Tmin ~

Mid

High

Environmental drivers Tmax, Tmin, MAP, PAS

Low

~

Applications to Management

Assisted migration

First steps …

Banff Monitoring program- Counting hay piles- Hair snares- Remote cameras

First steps …Banff Monitoring program

Future direction…Extend sampling and Monitoring program

3 low elevation(1 site )

3 high elevation(1 site )

normalized cDNA library construction

454 GS FLX Titanium (Génome Québec )~25,000 SNPs identified

The sea level pikas