Research finds 50% drop in younger American pikas within the Rockies as local weather warms

Pikas are constructed for chilly, skinny air. They reside on cool, rocky slopes throughout the Mountain West, the place they scurry between boulders, stash grasses for winter, and keep away from the noon warmth. And they’re unmistakable as soon as you notice one.

“They’re about the size and color of a baked potato,” stated Chris Ray, a researcher on the University of Colorado Boulder. “But they have Mickey Mouse ears.”

Ray has studied pikas for many years, together with at Niwot Ridge, a long-running alpine analysis web site west of Boulder. Her staff’s latest findings present that far fewer younger pikas are surviving lengthy sufficient to change into adults — a development she calls regarding however not shocking.

Pikas can overheat simply, and hotter situations are making journey throughout their habitat more difficult.

“It was the difficulty pikas have moving across warmer, south-facing slopes and lower elevations,” Ray stated. “And that’s just going to increase with climate change.”

Along with hotter summers, pikas are additionally going through lighter and fewer constant snowpack, which traditionally insulates them throughout winter. On prime of that, shifts in alpine vegetation could also be affecting their meals provide.

Ray says scientists contemplate pikas an indicator species — one that may sign broader environmental modifications in fragile mountain ecosystems. Tracking their numbers, she added, may assist researchers higher perceive how warming is reworking high-elevation landscapes throughout the West.

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between KUNR, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio, KJZZ in Arizona and NPR, with further assist from affiliate newsrooms throughout the area. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is supplied partially by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.