A Test of Climate Change Refugia in Montane Meadow Systems

Climate change refugia, areas on the landscape buffered from recent shifts in temperature and precipitation patterns, are potentially important to understand population responses to anthropogenic climate change. With funding from the California Landscape Conservation Cooperative and the National Science Foundation, we used occupancy and genetic data to test the climate change refugia concept. Specifically, we estimated connectivity between Sierra Nevada meadows based on features such as topography and hydrology and determined the amount of change that meadows experienced during the 20th century. We then examined fine-scale population genetic structure across the California range of a montane meadow specialist, the Belding's ground squirrel (Urocitellus beldingi). We found distinctive genetic structure across the state as well as within the smaller geographic area of the central Sierra Nevada. Genetic diversity between survey sites predicted climate change refugia and population persistence supported hypothetical landscape connectivity. Our results highlight an important tool in climate change adaptation, given the limited resources available to land managers.