Diversity and Climate Change: using elevational gradients to uncover processes underlying mammalian species distributions

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Rapid rates of extinction resulting from habitat destruction, resource exploitation, and climate change lend an unprecedented urgency to documenting and understanding biological diversity. Furthermore, effective conservation efforts will require a better comprehension of the mechanisms creating and maintaining biodiversity. Small mammal distributions will be examined on two contrasting montane gradients in the Southern Rocky Mountains, the San Juans and the Front Range, to test hypotheses related to the maintenance of biological diversity and to detect range shifts due to climate change. Three elevational transects within each mountain range will be surveyed to document diversity, species distributions, population trends, climate, food resources, and habitat characteristics. Comparisons between current ranges and historical distributions at a landscape scale will determine the degree of range shifts associated with documented climate changes.Knowledge of the interrelated processes structuring small mammal communities will serve as a foundation for understanding biodiversity patterns and their protection, and it will illustrate human impacts on species distributions in montane systems. Broader impacts of this project will include integration of the research into a science education program for under-represented grade school girls, participation in the San Juan Initiative to incorporate young people of Latin and Native American descent into science, and active recruitment of under-represented students into the research. The project will aid in the training of young scientists and involve active participation of undergraduates enrolled in the PI's classes. Additionally, a data repository and an education-outreach website will be used to disseminate research findings.