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Mountain Biodiversity and Climate Change

Thursday, November 14, 2024, 4–5 p.m. (Q&A and reception to follow)
Chancellor's Hall and Auditorium, Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE)
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Christy McCain’s lab has been studying how animals—mostly vertebrates and insects—are distributed on mountains around the world. Different groups of animals, driven by their evolutionary history and climate, show distinctive patterns. For example, mountain biodiversity for rodents, salamanders and moths is quite different from birds, bats and reptiles.Ìý

The conservation priorities for each group of mountain organisms are closely tied to elevational diversity patterns, land use change, and complex interactions with a rapidly warming and drying climate. In her lecture, Professor McCain will explore two case studies about how a changing montane climate impacts local Rocky Mountain fauna. Specifically, she will shareÌýhow mammal populations in the Front Range and San Juan Mountains are impacted by human-driven environmental changes based on comparisons with historical surveys, and contrast these mammal populations with beetles—specifically a charismatic group of carrion beetles—examiningÌýhow various physiological traits like heat and desiccation tolerance may be critical to responses to climate change.

Both studies will illustrate a key lesson learned in mountain conservation: certain traits of animals like body size and physiology underpin where and which organisms might be at the most risk from anthropogenic change.Ìý

Christy McCain is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and curator of vertebrates in the CU Museum of Natural History.

McCain received dual bachelor’s degrees in wildlife biology and studio art from Humboldt State University, was a natural resources & protected areas specialist in the Peace Corps Honduras, and then completed her doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Kansas.

She was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis at UC Santa Barbara prior to her assistant professorship at CU Boulder in 2008.

McCain studies how montane organisms are distributed on mountains around the world, and how those populations and species are influenced by human land use and climate change. Her research spans topics across ecology and evolution to understand and conserve biodiversity.

Funded by the National Science Foundation through several grants, her research has appeared in over 60 peer reviewed journals, including Science, Ecology Letters, Ecology and Global Change Biology among others.

McCain is the curator of the Vertebrate Collections in the CU Museum of Natural History where she is a steward for the continued protection and use of museum specimens for understanding and conserving the world’s biodiversity. She also teaches Mammalogy as well as various classes over the years in field biology, creative conservation messaging, and mountain ecology and conservation.