Utah's Montane Mammals: Indicators of Climate Change
EPA Grant Number: U916137Title: Utah's Montane Mammals: Indicators of Climate Change
Investigators: Rowe, Rebecca J.
Institution: University of Chicago
EPA Project Officer: Graham, Karen
Project Period: January 1, 2003 through January 1, 2006
Project Amount: $108,000
RFA: STAR Graduate Fellowships (2003)
Research Category: Fellowship - Zoology , Biology/Life Sciences , Academic Fellowships
Description:
Objective:The objective of this research project is to study regional and local species richness patterns of small mammals across elevational gradients in eastern Utah.
Approach:This research project will be unique in that it combines both geographic and phylogenetic criteria, and it therefore may offer insight into distributions over evolutionary time scales and with and between clades. Moreover, this research project may provide more refined methods of predicting elevational changes in species distributions as a result of current and future climate change and for developing approaches for managing and conserving small mammal species. There is an existing database of regional small mammal distributions, and this will be used for this project. I will need to visit only a few inadequately sampled locations. This will contribute greatly to the likely success of the project because the task would be too great for one person. This project will make a significant contribution to conservation biology and studies of species diversity and distributions.
Supplemental Keywords:fellowship, montane mammals, climate change, small mammal species, small mammal distributions, conservation, endangered species issues, conservation biology, Utah, UT, species diversity.