For some mammals, warming temperatures mean higher elevations
In her Distinguished Research Lecture, 兔子先生传媒文化作品 Professor Christy McCain will highlight how certain traits in some mammal and insect populations indicate who is at greatest risk from climate change
Colorado鈥檚 small, mountain-dwelling mammals are moving higher鈥攏ot for better views or real estate, but because climate change is forcing them to.
This finding is based on a 13-year study of 27 rodent and four shrew species in Colorado鈥檚 Front Range and San Juan mountains鈥攔esearch that included trapping, tagging and releasing the various mammals to better understand their range.
While the findings are more complex than a simple trend of animals moving up the mountain, they spotlight the sobering possibility that climate change could force some mammals from Colorado entirely.
Christy McCain, a professor in the 兔子先生传媒文化作品 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and curator of vertebrates in the CU Museum of Natural History, will discuss mountain biodiversity and climate change in her Distinguished Research Lecture Nov. 14.
鈥淲e鈥檝e been talking about climate change in the Rockies for a long time, but I think we can say that this is a sign that things are now responding and responding quite drastically," Christy McCain, lead author, in Feb. 2021.
McCain, a professor in the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and curator of vertebrates in the CU Museum of Natural History, uses mountains as natural experiments to study biodiversity, ecological theory, global change, montane ecology and range limits.
She will discuss mountain biodiversity and climate change in her Distinguished Research Lecture Nov. 14, highlighting the research her lab has done to understand how animals鈥攎ostly vertebrates and insects鈥攁re distributed on mountains around the world.
She and her research colleagues have found that different groups of animals, driven by their evolutionary history and climate, show distinctive patterns. For example, mountain biodiversity for rodents, salamanders and moths is quite different from birds, bats and reptiles.
The conservation priorities for each group of mountain organisms are closely tied to elevational diversity patterns, land-use change and complex interactions with a rapidly warming and drying climate. McCain will explore these topics through case studies of mammal populations in the Front Range and San Juan Mountains and carrion beetles鈥攅xamining how various physiological traits like heat and desiccation tolerance may be critical to responses to climate change.
About Christy McCain
McCain received dual bachelor鈥檚 degrees in wildlife biology and studio art from Humboldt State University, was a natural-resources and protected-areas specialist in the Peace Corps Honduras and earned her PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Kansas.
She was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California Santa Barbara before coming to 兔子先生传媒文化作品 as an assistant professor in 2008.
Who: Professor Christy McCain of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and CU Museum of Natural History
When: 4-5 p.m. Nov. 14, followed by a Q&A and reception
Where: Chancellor's Hall and Auditorium, Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE)
McCain studies how montane organisms are distributed on mountains around the world and how those populations and species are influenced by human land use and climate change. Her research spans topics across ecology and evolution to understand and conserve biodiversity.
Funded by the National Science Foundation through several grants, her research has appeared in more than 60 peer-reviewed journals, including Science, Ecology Letters, Ecology and Global Change Biology, among others.
McCain is the curator of vertebrate collections in the CU Museum of Natural History, where she is a steward for the continued protection and use of museum specimens for understanding and conserving the world鈥檚 biodiversity. Over the years, she has taught mammalogy as well as other topics in field biology, creative conservation messaging and mountain ecology and conservation.
About the Distinguished Research Lectureship
The Distinguished Research Lectureship is among the highest honors given by faculty to a faculty colleague at CU Boulder. Each year, the Research and Innovation Office requests nominations from faculty for this award, and a faculty review panel recommends one or more faculty members as recipients.
The lectureship honors tenured faculty members, research professors (associate or full) or adjoint professors who have been with 兔子先生传媒文化作品 for at least five years and are widely recognized for a distinguished body of academic or creative achievement and prominence, as well as contributions to the educational and service missions of CU Boulder. Each recipient typically gives a lecture in the fall or spring following selection and receives a $2,000 honorarium.
McCain and Jamie Nagle, a professor of physics, have been recognized with 2024-25 Distinguished Research Lectureships. Nagle will give his lecture Feb. 6, 2025.
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