Invasions, extinctions, and climate change: The long-term perspective of desert rodents

Many of the questions that ecologists are interested in involve asking the question: how will ecosystems change? In particular, we are interested predicting the response of natural systems to man-made perturbations such as invasions, extinctions, and climate change. Long-term studies provide unique insights into how communities change through time. Most importantly, they provide insights into the dynamics of community response to perturbations. Since 1977, desert rodents have been studied intensively at a NSF LTREB site near Portal, Arizona. Over the 30 years of this study, the community has responded to: a) the extinction of a dominant species, b) the invasion of a novel species, c) habitat change driven in part by background changes in climate, and d) several extreme climatic events. While many of these events have been studied for their basic scientific value, they have rarely been examined in the context of more applied concerns. Using the long-term perspective garnered from this study, I will discuss the impact on and response of this community to invasions, extinctions, and climate change.