American Pikas and Mountain Goats
High alpine talus slopes are home to a myriad of creatures, namely mountain goats and American pikas, both specialists in alpine habitats. We talk with Mallory Sandoval Lambert, whose curiosity about the interactions between these two mammalian herbivores led her to study their behaviors in the LaSal Mountains. Understanding these interactions will have important implications for the conservation of each species. This data will be particularly useful for both pika conservation and agencies tasked with managing the land that introduced mountain goat herds inhabit.
Meet the Scientist:
Mallory Sandoval Lambert
Mallory grew up at the foot of the Wasatch mountains in Utah where she discovered her passion for wildlife and the outdoors. She received a bachelor’s degree in biology and a minor in spanish from the University of Utah in 2013. She received her Master’s degree at the University of Wyoming, where she studied mule deer and pronghorn movement behavior in response to oil and natural gas development. She is currently a PhD candidate at Utah State University. Outside of wildlife, she loves dogs, climbing rocks, kayaking, being with friends and family, and traveling to Latin American countries.
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Interview EXCERPT
Mallory Sandoval Lambert, a PhD candidate at Utah State University, is studying ecological interactions between American pikas and mountain goats, right here in the LaSal mountains. We start off by talking about the logistics of studying these two mammals.
Lambert: For the pikas, I’m going out and collecting behavioral data to tie into the mountain goats space use. Part of this behavioral data is getting a fine scale image of how the pikas use the talus edge habitat. We walk up there very early in the morning, we sit down, and someone has binoculars, and the other person has a tablet. We watch as these pikas run out from the talus, or rocky slope. They use the talus to escape predation and to escape extreme temperatures and so they have to run out of that safety to go forage and collect hay for their winter hay piles. The data we’re collecting is the distance that they run from the talus edge out to a spot in the vegetated strip next to the talus, and basically just getting those measurements, which will then be incorporated into this mountain goat space use.
Science Moab: What are some of the challenges in collecting this data?
Lambert: One challenge of this chapter of my project is being able to sort of digitize these talus slopes so that they can be used in this analysis. I have 10 grazing enclosure sites set up across the north group of the La Sal Mountains and at each of the sites, we have two camera traps deployed each summer to collect visitation to each of our plots by pikas and mountain goats. I was really happy excited to see that we got quite a lot of data on these camera traps of mountain goats and pikas using these areas. So we know that they’re using it, we still just don’t know, to what extent. The analysis that I’ll do is called the resource selection function and it compares, for example, mountain goat used points that we know are used because they were collected from the GPS collar to randomly generated available points on the landscape. In doing that, you’re looking at different habitats, and whether or not they’re actually preferring one over the other by comparing these used and available points. So the final step in this analysis is to digitize the talus slope.
ScienceMoab: In studying the interactions of these two mammals, what is the overall goal of your research?
Lambert: I have two explanations there. The first one is more broad. We know that these two animals overlap in territory in Alaska, parts of Canada, and parts of the United States, but we don’t know how they interact or how they don’t interact in those areas. I think it’s an interesting question because no one has looked at it. The second explanation of why it’s important is that we do have these mountain goat transplants that are happening throughout the state of Utah. I think seeing how they interact can help us plan these transplants in the future. So if we know, for example, that evidence shows that there may be competition between mountain goats and American pikas, then maybe mountain goats should be transplanted in areas where pikas don’t currently exist. The other possibility, which I think is interesting, is that mountain goats and pikas could facilitate the existence of one another. This is something that we see in Africa among large and small bodied herbivores. If we are seeing evidence of facilitation, maybe we can transplant these mountain goats in areas where pica populations are declining. Perhaps that would help. So I think regionally within Utah, that is the way that we can help conserve both of these species.
Science Moab: Do pikas hibernate? What is their deal in the winter?
Lambert: That’s a fun question. The pika is a really interesting creature. In the summer, they’re active and they actively feed, but they also spend a lot of their time running out and collecting food for the winter, which they hide under rocks. It’s so amazing the amount of vegetation that a tiny animal like that collects. Then in the winter, we have the snow and pikas do not hibernate, they sit underneath the snow, and they eat these plants, and they actually select a variation of toxic plants and the toxins, as they degrade throughout the winter, preserve the plants, so the picas can then eat them. So they’re pretty smart. Typically when animals compete it’s when resources are limited, which is the winter season in this case. So by the pica going out and collecting its winter food in the summer, it may actually remove itself from competing in the resource limited season of winter.
