How scientists are using poop to track climate-change effects on pikas and their mountain home

Pikas may be adorable, but their poop doesn't really have the same appeal unlessyou're abiologist working to monitor the impact of climate changeon one of Canada's most threatenedecosystems.

That's the case for researchers at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, whoare developinga genetic monitoring tool that could revolutionize the way ecologists studyAmericanpikapopulations, and even give insights into how climate change is affecting their alpine home.

By analyzing pikaDNA, including from theirpoop,researcher Kate Arpinand the university's Russello Lab say theycould soontrack individual pikas,monitorthe interconnectedness of different pika populations, and record those populations'evolution in near-real time.

As the climate continues to warm, scientists say sensitive species like the pika can act as an early warning system for much more widespread impacts. Recent improvementsin the accessibility and affordability of DNA sequencing technologies have opened the door to a much deeper understanding of thespecies.

'Climate sentinels'

The American pika can be found at high elevations throughout parts of the Canadian Rockies and B.C.'s Coast Mountains, in rocky, barren habitats with little soil and vegetation. Hikers in western Canadamay be familiar withtheir characteristic call ("eep!").

Pikas are widely considered one of the animals most vulnerable to climate change. As temperatures rise, forests climb to higher elevations, reducing the amount of habitat available for pikas, saidTony Einfeldt, an ecologist with Parks Canada.

Warmer temperatures can also make it harder for pikas to find enough food anddecrease the winter snowpack, which theyrely on for insulation during the winter.

Biologists expect pikaswill be forced to move to higher elevations, which could further isolate populations from each other a common driver of decline among many species.

"One way of catching that process early would be to look at the changes in connectivity that would result in these increasingly island-like mountainous regions through genetic tools," said Einfeldt, who says park ecologists are currently monitoringpikas by recording the piles of dried vegetation that the mammals gather as a winter food source.

Unfortunately, some populations may also findthere is no mountain left to climb, causing thosepikastolose their habitat completely.

Pikas'sensitivityto climate change makes them an excellent indicator species, or "climate sentinel," according to the experts CBC spoke to.

"They provide us this pulse, this barometer of what's happening in our most sensitive ecosystems,"saidErik Beever, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and Montana State University.

Limited evidence showscertain U.S. pika populations may havesome ability to adapt, but in other areaspikas are seeing widespread decline.The status of Canadian populations is less well known largelydue to a lack of genetic data, said Arpin.

She says she hopes thegenetic monitoring tool she and her collaborators have builtmay soon change that.

The promise ofpika poop

The tool is already extremelyaccurate when it comes to analyzing a pika'sgenetic material from tissue samples, even those dating as far back as 1930.

Themore degraded DNA found in their scat is trickier to analyze accurately, witherror rates close to 30 per cent. Arpin saysthey were able toreduce the error ratebymodifyingtheir lab protocols, and that further improvement is possible.

Until those refinements are madethe applications of the toolare limited, saysBeever, who was not involved in the research.

"The great limitation [is] how little pikatissue has been collected across the species' range, [and]the fact that it's time-intensive and costly to obtain such tissue," he said.

Still, Beeveris optimistic.

"I would argue that the rapidity of development and evolution of these molecular tools is pretty mind-blowing, andspecifically on the front of non-invasive techniques [like scat sampling]."

WATCH | Monitoring the American pika:

The small fluffy mammals captivating UBC Okanagan researchers

10 months ago

Duration 2:42

One of B.C.'s most adored animals, the American pika, is believed to be particularly threatened by climate change. As CBC's Darius Mahdavi explains, researchers at UBC Okanagan have been developing a new tool to monitor the species.

Arpin sayswhile this sort of genetic monitoring is very new, there have been breakthroughs for other species.

"Recent work ... has developed the same type of genetic monitoring tool for polar bearand for deer [scat] samples," she said."There's definitelypromise in using these sorts of genetic monitoring tools in the future."

If sampling is done over many years, researchers could even potentially watch the species evolve through their poop. To do so, they would analyzeregions of DNA believed to be evolutionarily neutral as well as those that might give some individuals an advantage as the climate changes.

If researchers areable to achieve high accuracy with fecal samples, it would mean achange of approach for the Parks Canada ecologists monitoring pikas as Einfeldt already knows from Arpin's request for samples.

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"I think usually we're trying to avoid touching the poop," he said.

"But we donnedour rubber gloves and got ourforceps out and went digging through their latrines that they form in these rocky environments.Looking for the freshest, best poop we could find."