Research on Downtown Pika Town

For this week in Community Ecology, we had gotten in groups of 3 or 4 and created a research project of our choosing. Joe, Dani, Mandy, and I all got together and chose to do a research project on Pika.

Pika are these little rodents in close relation to the rabbit, that live solely above 7,500 feet in the subalpine and alpine regions of the rocky talus field.  During the winter, they do not hibernate, but like squirrels, will store their food in piles (haypiles) among the rocky crevices to keep them sustained through the long 8-month winter.

We specifically did our study on the effects that the herbivory of the American Pika have on the diversity of woody plants on the Gros Ventre Slide talus field.  We found that there was an unique Pika population on the Slide, which was just interesting in itself, since the Slide measures up to about 7,000 ft in elevation, and Pika are normally found at a starting 7,500 - 8,000 ft in elevation.

Overview of Our Research Location - the Snowy, Slippery Talus Field on the Gros Ventre Slide

Monday, we headed to the Gros Ventre Slide to start our research.  For the next 6-8 hours we spent it scouring and scouting the rocky talus in wind and snow in search for pika haypiles.

Dani Battling the Elements in Search of Pika Haypiles

By the end of the day, we had flagged and found 18 haypiles!  Some were incredibly profound and some looked pretty old and small.  It was really cool seeing a variety of them.  Our research had told us that each pika individual and population are incredibly unique when it comes to selectivity of what they prefer in their haypiles.  And clearly, you could see the variety and uniqueness in selectivity on each haypile.

Found Some!

We found a super, mega, huge one: it was so cool because it was completely around under this one huge rock, and full of not just grasses, forbs, and flowering plant matter, but full of a pinecones, other animal feces, and variety of sized woody plants (which was great back up for our research).

Big Bertha - the Mother of All Haypiles

For our data, we would run a transect 35-m from the haypile as our experimental transect.  We would also run another 35-m transect 30-m away from the haypile (making sure there were no other haypiles in this range) for our control.  The purpose of these transects was to see based on an experimental and control standpoint if Pika were affecting the woody plant diversity within their 30-m home range of their haypile compared to a pika uninhabited control transect.

Measuring 35-m Transects for our Woody Species Quadrats

On Day 2, Tuesday, it snowed throughout the end of the day on Monday into the night, so when we got back up to the slide, the rocky talus was completely covered in snow.  Which posed a problem for if we wanted to try to find additional haypiles.  Luckily we had found most of them on Monday and were able to focus on our transects and collecting woody plant species counts within the transects.

Throughout both days we did not really see any pika (we would assume they had hunkered down deep within the talus to wait out the winter), but we did find possibly tracks, which was exciting.

Believed to be some Ochotana princeps tracks!

While we collected data in our transects, we only recorded woody plants that were within a 40- 140 cm range, since this was the range that pika would most luckily break down and use for their haypile supply.  Trampling through dense vegetation, especially, prickly but aromatic, Juniper, was really tough and there was a lot of uneven ground.

Not only did we collect plant data, but we also took other qualitative data on transect direction (azimuth), slope, aspect, and percent rock cover.

Measuring 30 - 140 cm Woody Plants for Collecting Data!

Overall, this was a really cool research project to do.  Pika are pretty fascinating species and this was a great opportunity for me to learn and advance my knowledge on woody plants of the Rocky Mountain Region.  Not going to lie, I am slowly learning to like plants!

Sometimes, aka All the Time, Things Just Seemed to Keep Falling

After analyzing our data and doing a bunch of statistical tests, we came up short on determining a clear significant correlation between woody plant diversity and the proximity from a haypile.  There was no correlation in diversity even between the control and experimental transects.  We concluded that Pika are probably evenly consuming and grazing from all over the talus and that the woody plant diversity is being evenly grazed over on the talus edge.  However, we did find that there was a significant correlation between woody plant diversity and rock cover.

This project gave us a taste of the research side of the TSS Grad Program, a chance to bring back some talents on GIS and research methods.  If we were given a different time of year and a longer amount of data collection time for Pika research, and a chance to change our methods, I think we would be able to find a significant correlation between woody plant diversity and the Pika of the Gros Ventre Slide talus field in Downtown Pika Town.

The Downtown Pika Town - Pika Posse

Will be in Laramie for the next few days to visit and tour the University of Wyoming Campus!

Peace Out, Pika Scout!
TheChristyBel