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Details of this Research Plan
| Research Project Number: | 2010-593 |
| Research Project Title: | Climate & climate change around RMBL |
| Investigator: | Graham Pyke |
| Abstract:: | The present study aims to characterise the climate in the area around RMBL, consider temporal links in these climatic patterns, and determine how the climate has changed over about the last 100 years. We shall focus on temperature and precipitation, as these are standard climatic parameters that are recorded at weather stations throughout the world, they are known to affect organisms in many ways, and they are known to be changing through human-induced influences on the climatic system. We distinguish between precipitation that falls as snow from rainfall, and include other climatic variables where available, and consider time scales that range from an hour to a century. The present study will also use changes in climate at RMBL as a case study to show the utility of placing local changes in climate in the context of longer time periods and larger regions. We shall test the links of local changes in temperature and precipitation with larger scale climate patterns, such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). In addition, an opportunity to examine the effects of climate change on bumble bees and the flowers they visit has been provided by surveys that were carried out near Crested Butte, Colorado in 1974. Given the general trend toward warmer temperatures, we hypothesized that there would be alterations of the historic distributions, with bees and their food plants moving up in altitude in order to remain within their preferred climate zones and in 2007 we sought to test this hypothesis by repeating the 1974 surveys. We aim to test this hypothesis by comparing the results of the 1974 surveys with results of surveys in 2007 and subsequent years. |
| Affiliated Institution(s):: | Macquarie University |
| Collaborator(s):: | Dr David Inouye Dr James thomson |
| Year submitted:: | 2010 |
| Study Period:: | 1 year beginning in 2010 |
| Status/Notes:: | login as a Research Committee member Current Status = Under review. |
| Approval/Conditions of Approval:: | The "Approval/Conditions of Approval" memo is not available. |
| Funding Duration(s):: | |
| Funding Source(s):: | |
| Funding Amount(s):: | |
| Principal organism(s):: | Bumblebees & the plants they visit |
| Classification:: |
Level = community Theme = Research Subject = Climate change |
| Info on any prior research sites:: | |
| Prior conditions of research:: | (((( |
| Mapped locations of Graham Pyke : | Click here to search in the research site database |
| Project Description: | Project description details for this Research Plan are withheld from public view by Lab policy. Please contact director at rmbl.org for more information on this policy. |
| Why RMBL is appropriate for this research:: | |
| References used for this research plan:: |
Armitage, K. B. 1962. Social behaviour of a colony of the yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventris). Animal Behaviour, 10:319-331.
Enfield, D. B., A. M. Mestas-Nuñez, and P. J. Trimble. 2001. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and its relation to rainfall and river flows in the continental U.S. Geophysical Research Letters, 28:2077-2080.
Harte, J., and R. Shaw. 1995. Shifting dominance within a montane vegetation community: results of a climate-warming experiment. Science, 267:876-880.
Harte, J., M. S. Torn, F.-R. Chang, B. Feifarek, A. P. Kinzig, R. Shaw, and K. Shen. 1995. Global warming and soil microclimate: results from a meadow-warming experiment. Ecological Applications, 5:132-150.
Inouye, D. W. 1976. Resource partitioning and community structure: A study of bumblebees in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Dissertation thesis, University of North Carolina.
—. 2008. Effects of climate change on phenology, frost damage, and floral abundance of montane wildflowers. Ecology, 89:353-362.
Inouye, D. W., and A. D. McGuire. 1991. Effects of snowpack on timing and abundance of flowering in Delphinium nelsonii (Ranunculaceae): implications for climate change. American Journal of Botany, 78:997-1001.
Inouye, D. W., M. Morales, and G. Dodge. 2002. Variation in timing and abundance of flowering by Delphinium barbeyi Huth (Ranunculaceae): the roles of snowpack, frost, and La Niña, in the context of climate change. Oecologia, 139:543-550.
Inouye, D. W., F. Saavedra, and W. Lee. 2003. Environmental influences on the phenology and abundance of flowering by Androsace septentrionalis L. (Primulaceae). American Journal of Botany, 90:905-910.
IPCC. 2007. Climate Change 2007: The physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, New York.
Ozgul, A., M. K. Oli, K. B. Armitage, D. T. Blumstein, and D. H. vanVuren. 2009. Influence of local demography on asymptotic and transient dynamics of a yellow-bellied marmot metapopulation. American Naturalist, 173:517-530.
Pyke, G. H. 1982. Local geographic distributions of bumblebees near Gothic, Colorado: Competition and community structure. Ecology, 63:555-573.
Saavedra, F., D. W. Inouye, M. V. Price, and J. Harte. 2003. Changes in flowering and abundance of Delphinium nuttallianum (Ranunculaceae) in response to a subalpine climate warming experiment. Global Change Biology, 9:885-894.
Stephen, W. P. 1957. Bumble Bees of Western North America (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). Agricultural Experiment Station, Oregon State College, Corvallis, OR.
Williams, P. 2007. Bumblebee ID quick color guide to the Bombus females of Western North America. Natural History Museum.
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| Publications of Graham Pyke :: | Click here |
| Metadata of Graham Pyke : | Click here |
| CV (if any): : | CVs are withheld from public view by Lab policy. |
| Extra Information / Notes:: | There are is no extra information for this plan supplied by the author. |
