Shrinking Range of Furry California Pikas Reveals the Impacts of Climate Change

A small, furry animal may be revealing the true impacts of climate change. Scientists have found that this small mammal is shifting its range in response to changing temperatures.

Pikas are small herbivores that are related to rabbits. They live in fields of broken rock in the mountains of western North America. Due to their thick fur and high metabolic rates, they're well adapted to cold temperatures at high elevations. In fact, when summer temperatures are too high, pikas are forced to stay underground to avoid overheating. This means they spend less time foraging and creating "haypiles" for sustenance during the winter months.

In order to better understand the pikas' range shift, the researchers surveyed 67 locations with historical records of pikas. Surprisingly, they found that the animals have disappeared from ten of these sites, which is 10 percent of the sites surveyed. Then, the researchers used this data to develop a predictive model that they could use to explore the fate of the species in the face of ongoing global warming.

So what did they find? By 2070, the model predicted that pikas will have disappeared from much of their historical range in California (39 to 88 percent of sites). The severity of this decline, though, will depend on how much summer temperatures rise.

"Pikas are a model organism for studying climate change, and their decline and low-elevation sites suggests that the future for other species is not great either," said Joseph Stewart, one of the researchers, in a news release. "The problem is that the climate is changing faster than species can adapt or disperse to new sites."

The findings reveal that these small mammals may experience a grim future. Many locations where pikas live aren't high enough to provide a refuge from warming temperatures. This species will likely have to be monitored in the future.

The findings are published in the Journal of Biogeography.

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