The next meeting of the Bow Valley Naturalists will take place next Wednesday (Feb. 23) at 7:30 pm in the Banff Seniors’ Centre. It will feature a presentation by Dr. David Hik titled: Pikas, Marmots and Snow: Alpine Herbivores in a Warming Climate. This is the first in a series of programs planned for this year to focus on High Elevation Localized Species (HELS).
Pikas and hoary marmots are found throughout alpine meadows in the mountains of western Canada, but not much is known about their ecology and vulnerability to disturbance and environmental change. A few recent studies suggest that the extent and timing of seasonal snow cover plays a critical role in determining the survival, reproductive success, behaviour and growth of mammalian herbivores living in alpine environments.
Dr. Hik will present an overview of the results of long-term research on collared pikas and hoary marmots in the Yukon, how these populations appear to cope with variability in temperature and precipitation and the potential consequences of climate change. He will also discuss the need for sustained observing and monitoring in order to better understand the dynamics of alpine environments and the species that live in these high places.
Hik is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Northern Ecology in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta. For the past 25 years his research interests have focused on the effects of environmental variability on interactions between plants and vertebrate herbivores in northern tundra and mountain environments. He has a particular fondness for collared pikas in the southwest Yukon.
From 2004-2009 he was Executive Director of the Canadian International Polar Year Secretariat and is currently President of the International Arctic Science Committee, co-chair of the Arctic Council-led Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks’ initiative and member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Polar Commission, the Arctic Institute of North America (University of Calgary) and the Arctic Portal (Iceland).
The program is free and open to the public. It will be preceded by a brief annual general meeting.
