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Explore ecological solutions to contemporary global change challenges through a comprehensive lecture by Dr. Erik Beever examining the American Pika as a model organism for understanding mountain ecosystem health. Learn how climate change has created both opportunities and challenges across socio-ecological systems, from new shipping lanes and increased agricultural productivity in higher latitudes to more frequent extreme weather events including heat domes, droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, snow droughts, and rain-on-snow events. Discover the profound economic, cultural, and ecological impacts these changes have on agriculture, recreation, ecosystem services like erosion control, pollination, and the production of food, fiber, and drinking water. Examine Dr. Beever's ecological data collected across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and western USA from 1994 to present, gaining insights into context-dependent results and frameworks for developing solutions to ecological challenges at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Understand how the American Pika serves as an indicator species for monitoring mountain ecosystems that remain relatively unaffected by habitat loss or degradation, and learn how research conducted in Grand Teton National Park and surrounding areas provides transferable lessons for ecosystem management throughout the western United States.
