Alpine Arthropods: Little Creatures with a Great View - Trevor Randall
Any scientist and informed person will tell you that climate change is detrimentally affecting the world in ways that we can measure, and in ways that we have yet to learn. We have all seen the polar bears on melting ice caps, and the tragic story of the Northern White Rhino (both of which are incredibly important topics), but how often do you stop and think about the little creatures running around your feet? Surely an ever-changing climate must affect them too, right?
I personally had no idea that I even liked ecology until I took General Biology 2. It was like a switch flipped in my brain; I couldn鈥檛 get enough of the field that was trying to understand how the earth and its inhabitants worked together. In serendipitous fashion I later returned to Gen Bio 2 as an undergraduate TA where I was presented with an amazing research opportunity to learn how climate change affects the creatures we all seem to forget about.
Under Dr. Warren Sconiers I was given the opportunity to conduct ecological research in the alpine tundra. We were able to research the effect of early snow melt on arthropod diversity (think insects, spiders, centipedes, millipedes etc.). Through this, we hope to predict future effects that climate change will have and to better understand what is happening now with the changing snowmelt that is scientifically proven to be occurring.
The alpine tundra is not easy to get to, but wow is it worth it. I was able to stay at the Mountain Research Station in Nederland, CO, USA. My summer became full of living in a small cabin, meeting scientists and students who share the same passions as me, and hiking up a mountain for our research. On the ridge, at over 11,000ft elevation, the views go on for miles. The only thing we can鈥檛 see, is the future for the arthropods, but that is what we are working to understand. To ensure that those small, hardworking creatures of the world are protected against climate change, creating a more ecologically stable future for us all.
