Assessing Climate Refugia and Connectivity for Desert Bighorn Sheep
Project ID: J8W07100030
Federal Agency: National Park Service
Partner Institution: Oregon State University
Fiscal Year: 2010
Initial Funding: $341,882
Total Funding: $356,514
Project Type: Research
Project Disciplines: Biological
National Park: Pacific West Region
Principal Investigator: Epps, Clinton
Agreement Technical Representative: Wild, Margaret
Abstract: Climate change has and will continue to have adverse effects on the population persistence of desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni). National Park Service (NPS) lands support a significant proportion of extant desert bighorns (at least 20% of range-wide population), and will play a critical role in the conservation of this species. Maintaining or establishing connectivity among existing populations of bighorn sheep will provide the best means for offsetting the unpredictable but potentially devastating changes in precipitation and temperature predicted for the American southwest. There has been no regional assessment of bighorn genetic diversity or metapopulation connectivity with respect to parks. Further, NPS units currently lack an understanding of how climate change will affect habitat, distribution, and connectivity among desert sheep herds. This is a collaborative project between Oregon State University (OSU) and NPS to evaluate such impacts and identify herds and habitats that are most vulnerable to climate change, as well as opportunities to mitigate such trends. Our objective is to assess climate refugia and connectivity across 10 parks and four states that contain the vast majority of all desert bighorn sheep within NPS lands. We will use a combination of new and existing datasets to: 1) analyze genetic diversity and metapopulation structure of desert bighorn on NPS and pertinent surrounding lands; 2) optimize connectivity models by augmenting existing genetic datasets; 3) explore metapopulation persistence under different connectivity and climate change scenarios; and 4) identify regional refugia for desert bighorn sheep in the context of NPS lands and climate change. This project will allow NPS to identify specific options to maintain bighorn sheep metapopulations in and around NPS units and focus limited resources on bighorn metapopulations that are most threatened by climate change. Thus, while this project will evaluate the effects of various climate scenarios on bighorn sheep persistence, it will also take the next and even more critical step of determining what can be done to alleviate the effects of a warming climate on desert sheep.