MIC Free Lecture Series: Ecological Interactions Between Mountain Goats and American Pikas

Mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus) and American pikas (Ochotona princeps) are naturally co-occurring across most of their overlapping distributions in western N. America. The southern limit of the natural range of mountain goats is in Idaho, whereas American pikas occur naturally as far south as New Mexico. However, the mountain goat range has been extended southwards with the establishment of translocated subpopulations in Utah and Colorado. These mountain goats now share habitat with pikas, providing an opportunity to study potential ecological interactions between these two alpine specialists near the southern limits of their current ranges. Join Mallory Sandoval Lambert as she talks about how her research is exploring this previously unstudied system through field-based experimentation, with a focus on the La Sal Mountains in southern Utah. ~ Mallory is a three year recipient of the CNHA Discovery Pool Grant ~