Warming Winters and Regional Implications for the Subnivean Climate

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

This award will provide funds to study a poorly known environment below the snowpack known as the subnivium. To escape the harsh winter weather, many plants and animals persist within a warmer and more stable environment underneath the snowpack. The climate of the subnivium is dependent on snowpack depth, density and duration; deep, soft snow provides excellent insulation that results in mild subnivium temperatures. Within the Great Lakes Region, the subnivium is historically important, but winter conditions are changing rapidly. By 2050, mean winter temperature is predicted to be 3-4 degrees Centigrade warmer resulting in a shorter snowcover season and shallower and denser snowpack. These changes will produce a colder and more thermally variable subnivium. For species that are specially adapted to survive winter in the subnivium, such changes could effect their survival and distribution. To determine how climate change will affect the conditions and distribution of this sensitive habitat, this award will experimentally mimic climate change predicted by 2050 across the Great Lakes Region using micro-greenhouses. Finally, laboratory experiments and distribution modeling will reveal how future subnivium conditions will affect the physiology, survival and distribution of a sensitive subnivium hibernating amphibian species native to the Great Lakes Region. This project will provide new information on the mechanisms and extent to which climate change will affect various attributes of the subnivium a biologically important and climatically sensitive seasonal refugium. It will assess how changing snow conditions will alter the survival and physiological function of a hibernating amphibian and predict their future distribution in warming winters. This project will also provide professional development opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students through interactions with partners at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Michigan Tech University, and The Wildlife Society's Climate Change Working Group. Micro-greenhouses will be constructed by participants at Operation Fresh Start, a local youth development program, and will provide opportunities for underrepresented, at-risk and minority youth to interact with university faculty, researchers and students. Finally, the placement of micro-greenhouses at state parks, and recreational areas will serve as an important tool for climate change education and provide potentially long-term research opportunities.