Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Californian CESU

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The USGS, Western Ecological Research Center’s (WERC) Yosemite/Bishop Field Station, is offering a funding opportunity to explore and to bridge the gaps in knowledge of climate effects on alpine mammals and their habitats throughout the Sierra Nevada. Our collaborator in this effort includes the University of California – Davis. The three principal goals are to use ground-based surveys and remote sensing data to develop models of the contemporary ranges for the five species; use a combination of field experiments and ground-based surveys to evaluate the degree to which plant-animal interactions may alter transitions of alpine meadows to woody dominate communities; and use data from the field experiments and ground-based surveys to develop and compare models of projected range shifts with and without incorporation of the effect the mammals have on meadow conversion. The critical aspect of this approach is the testing of multiple models of projected vegetation transitions with and without variables representing shifts in mammal ranges and feedbacks from herbivory and granivory.

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