Apparent climate-mediated loss and fragmentation of core habitat of the American pika in the Northern Sierra Nevada, California, USA
Abstract
Contemporary climate change has been widely documented as the apparent cause of range contraction at the edge of many species distributions but documentation of climate change as a cause of extirpation and fragmentation of the interior of a species’ core habitat has been lacking. Here in this paper, we report the extirpation of the American pika (Ochotona princeps), a temperature-sensitive small mammal, from a 165-km2 area located within its core habitat in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. While sites surrounding the area still maintain pikas, radiocarbon analyses of pika fecal pellets recovered within this area indicate that former patch occupancy ranges from before 1955, the beginning of the atmospheric spike in radiocarbon associated with above ground atomic bomb testing, to c. 1991. Despite an abundance of suitable rocky habitat climate warming appears to have precipitated their demise. Weather station data reveal a 1.9°C rise in local temperature and a significant decline in snowpack over the period of record, 1910–2015, pushing pika habitat into increasingly tenuous climate conditions during the period of extirpation. This is among the first accounts of an apparently climate-mediated, modern extirpation of a species from an interior portion of its geographic distribution, resulting in habitat fragmentation, and ismore »
- Authors:
-
[1];
- Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States). Dept. of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Rancho Cordova, CA (United States). North Central Region
- California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Rancho Cordova, CA (United States). North Central Region
- USDA Forest Service, Livermore, CA (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1395312
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC52-07NA27344
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- PLoS ONE
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 12; Journal Issue: 8; Journal ID: ISSN 1932-6203
- Publisher:
- Public Library of Science
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Pikas; Climate change; Lakes; Paleoclimatology; Habitats; Radioactive carbon dating; California; Weather stations
Citation Formats
Stewart, Joseph A. E., Wright, David H., and Heckman, Katherine A. Apparent climate-mediated loss and fragmentation of core habitat of the American pika in the Northern Sierra Nevada, California, USA. United States: N. p., 2017.
Web. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0181834.
Stewart, Joseph A. E., Wright, David H., & Heckman, Katherine A. Apparent climate-mediated loss and fragmentation of core habitat of the American pika in the Northern Sierra Nevada, California, USA. United States. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0181834
Stewart, Joseph A. E., Wright, David H., and Heckman, Katherine A. Wed .
"Apparent climate-mediated loss and fragmentation of core habitat of the American pika in the Northern Sierra Nevada, California, USA". United States. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0181834. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1395312.
@article{osti_1395312,
title = {Apparent climate-mediated loss and fragmentation of core habitat of the American pika in the Northern Sierra Nevada, California, USA},
author = {Stewart, Joseph A. E. and Wright, David H. and Heckman, Katherine A.},
abstractNote = {Contemporary climate change has been widely documented as the apparent cause of range contraction at the edge of many species distributions but documentation of climate change as a cause of extirpation and fragmentation of the interior of a species’ core habitat has been lacking. Here in this paper, we report the extirpation of the American pika (Ochotona princeps), a temperature-sensitive small mammal, from a 165-km2 area located within its core habitat in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. While sites surrounding the area still maintain pikas, radiocarbon analyses of pika fecal pellets recovered within this area indicate that former patch occupancy ranges from before 1955, the beginning of the atmospheric spike in radiocarbon associated with above ground atomic bomb testing, to c. 1991. Despite an abundance of suitable rocky habitat climate warming appears to have precipitated their demise. Weather station data reveal a 1.9°C rise in local temperature and a significant decline in snowpack over the period of record, 1910–2015, pushing pika habitat into increasingly tenuous climate conditions during the period of extirpation. This is among the first accounts of an apparently climate-mediated, modern extirpation of a species from an interior portion of its geographic distribution, resulting in habitat fragmentation, and is the largest area yet reported for a modern-era pika extirpation. Our finding provides empirical support to model projections, indicating that even core areas of species habitat are vulnerable to climate change within a timeframe of decades.},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0181834},
journal = {PLoS ONE},
number = 8,
volume = 12,
place = {United States},
year = {2017},
month = {8}
}
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