Adaptation to global change in Alberta’s mountain environment
Using the Columbian ground squirrel as a model animal species, we are examining organismal responses to patterns of global change. Because of demonstrated gene flow over the mountain environment, from alpine to foothill habitats in Alberta, the ground squirrels have evolved extreme phenotypic plasticity in their lifecycles. Thus, they are at the extreme favorable limit of flexibility to short-term changes in the physical environment that are occurring under climatic aspects of global change. In addition, the ground squirrels respond through their lifecycles to two critical climatic changes that are especially important in Alberta: the onset of spring and the intensity of midsummer warming and drying. These climatic elements exhibit increased fluctuations over the years, and our long-term studies permit testing of both basic and practical questions of animal reactions to climatic fluctuations.
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PI: Dr. F Stephen Dobson (Professor, Auburn University)
​Duration: 26 years ongoing (1992-present)
Collaborators: P Neuhaus (Univ Calgary), DW Coltman (U Alberta), VA Viblanc (IPHC-CNRS), JE Lane (Univ Saskatoon), etc.......
Adaptation to global change in Alberta’s mountain environment
Using the Columbian ground squirrel as a model animal species, we are examining organismal responses to patterns of global change. Because of demonstrated gene flow over the mountain environment, from alpine to foothill habitats in Alberta, the ground squirrels have evolved extreme phenotypic plasticity in their lifecycles. Thus, they are at the extreme favorable limit of flexibility to short-term changes in the physical environment that are occurring under climatic aspects of global change. In addition, the ground squirrels respond through their lifecycles to two critical climatic changes that are especially important in Alberta: the onset of spring and the intensity of midsummer warming and drying. These climatic elements exhibit increased fluctuations over the years, and our long-term studies permit testing of both basic and practical questions of animal reactions to climatic fluctuations.
​
PI: Dr. F Stephen Dobson (Professor, Auburn University)
​Duration: 26 years ongoing (1992-present)
Collaborators: P Neuhaus (Univ Calgary), DW Coltman (U Alberta), VA Viblanc (IPHC-CNRS), JE Lane (Univ Saskatoon), etc.......
Climate adaptation
Three mechanisms may prevent extinction in response to rapid anthropogenic climate change: dispersal to more favourable climates, phenotypic plasticity and/or microevolution. We have been working to develop Columbian ground squirrels as a model mammalian system to investigate these mechanisms. In the past, we have used this information to determine that ground squirrel phenologies (i.e., the ecological trait most commonly affected by climate change) are heritable (and therefore, can evolve when subject to selection), phenotypically plastic, vary across populations differing in elevation and influence fitness. We are now building on these earlier findings to determine the physiological mechanism underlying observed climate-phenology-fitness relationships (e.g., body temperature profiles during hibernation, body composition and metabolic rate). We are also using experimental approaches (reciprocal translocation) to evaluate between population variation and simulate potential altitudinal dispersal events. Our aim is to use what we have learned from this highly tractable system to understand responses to climate change that simply can not be investigated in larger, more vagrant and less abundant components of Alberta’s biodiversity.
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PI: Dr. Jeffrey Lane (Professor, University of Saskatchewan)
​Duration: 12 years ongoing (2007-present)
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Sociality and disease transmission
Evolution of life history traits
