Effects of Climate Change on Ungulates

Funding Sources: USGS Global Climate Change Initiative

Collaborators: Matt Kauffman, Bob Klaver, Paul Cross and Geneva Chong (USGS)

Students: Angela Brennan and Jenny Jones (Univ. of WY)


Climate change is the major conservation issue of the 21st Century and snow pack is a major driver of many ecosystem processes in the northern Rockies. As a result, my research on brucellosis in the GYE has led to new questions about the effects of climate on disease and ungulate dynamics. My research has shown that snow pack is the primary driver of the artificial feeding regime of elk, with cascading effects upon brucellosis in elk. We are currently working on how future climate scenarios may affect the future importance of the supplemental feedgrounds as well as elk aggregation and brucellosis transmission patterns around the GYE. To do so, we will assess the relative importance of summer range versus winter severity, how they interact, and how they may be affected by future climate scenarios. In addition, my collaborators and I are ground-truthing recently available snow pack data (SNODAS which is derived from satellite, airborne and ground-based observations) and integrating those data with GPS tracking datasets. The SNODAS data have not been widely used in wildlife applications, but the daily timescale and 1-km resolution make SNODAS the most appropriate match for GPS tracking datasets. Northwestern ungulates are primarily managed by state and federal agencies and provide much of the conservation funding (through hunting and tourism). Therefore, potential climate impacts on ungulates may have cascading financial implications for many other species.



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