Effects of climate change on altitudinal range shifts in Chilean Liolaemus
Climate change is evident in countries of South America, including Chile, and computer models predict temperature increases into the next century. Montane taxa show upward range extensions associated with warming temperatures, but it has been definitively shown in lizards only in a few studies. Despite the likelihood of this phenomenon, there has been no test of the hypothesis of upslope range extension associated with recent rapid temperature increases in lizards of the temperate Andes. Chile is an extremely mountainous country with an impressive diversity of montane lizards. This study is the first to test the idea of climate linked upward range shifts in lizards of the temperate Andes. Our results will address elevational range shifts in the central region of Chile where other anthropogenic stressors are also in evidence. We will pinpoint what species are shifting their 
elevations upward as a consequence of recent rapid increase in ambient temperatures and relate those shifts to natural features that could amplify extinction risks, like reduced space upward in a local sense, lack of essential habitat, presence of superior competitors and novel predators; and anthropogenic activities that could increase extinction risks, like mining, forestry, and real estate development. Also, we will determine if the species have evolved morphologically in response to climate change, controlling for changes in land use. The second step of our research program is to conduct intensive population surveys of those species that have moved upward into new habitat to appraise their conservation status and implement conservation action as necessary.
Collaborators
Herman Núñez
Herman is now retired, but he was the Curator of Vertebrates of the Chilean National Museum of Natural History in Santiago, Chile. He is the world's authority on the herpetofauna of Chile.
Felipe Rodríguez
Felipe is Professor of Biology at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico in Toluca, Mexico and studies all sorts of aspects of the evolutionary ecology of reptiles.
Troy Baird
Troy is a Profesor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Central Oklahoma. He works with the behavioral ecology of collared lizards.
http://www.biology.uco.edu/PersonalPages/bairdweb/tbaird.htm
Jerry Husak
Jerry is an Associate Professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnsota. He is interested in how natural and sexual selection shape physiological and morphological traits, especially performance traits. Jerry was my former PhD student.
http://jerryhusak.weebly.com/index.html
Daniel Pincheira-Donoso
Daniel is Lecturer in the School of Life Sciences at Queen's University in Belfast. Daniel is an evolutionary biologist interested in selection theory, ecology and genetics of adaptations, macroecology, life history evolution, and climate change biology, related especially to lizards.
https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/daniel-pincheira-donoso
Day Ligon
Day is Associate Professor of Biology at Missouri State University. He is interested in physiological ecology and conservation of reptiles, with an emphasis on turtles.
http://biology.missouristate.edu/137611.htm
Ronald Van Den Bussche
Ron is a Regents Professor of Integrative Biology at Oklaoma State University. He is a molecular geneticist who addresses phylogenetic, phylogeographic, or population genetic questions in mammals, especially bats.
http://zoology.okstate.edu/people/faculty/8-people/faculty/31-ronald-a-van-den-bussche
Matthew Lovern
Matt is Associate Professor of Integrative Biology at Oklahoma State University. He is a behavioral endocrinologist who studies maternal effects, focusing on maternal steroid deposition into yolk as a potential means of influencing offspring phenotype, especially in lizards.
http://zoology.okstate.edu/people/faculty/8-people/faculty/24-matthew-b-lovern
Jennifer Grindstaff
Jen is Associate Professor of Integrative Biology at Oklahoma State University. She is a behavioral ecologist who works in ecological immunology, integrating field and laboratory work to explore how ecological and physiological parameters act and interact to influence parent and offspring phenotypes.
http://zoology.okstate.edu/people/faculty/8-people/faculty/21-jennifer-grindstaff
David Leslie, Jr.
Chip is the Fish and Wildlife Co-op Unit Leader in Natural Resource Ecology and Management at Oklahoma State University. He is involved in a multitude of wildlife research projects, including freshwater turtle conservation and ecology.
http://nrem.okstate.edu/faculty/leslie.html
Dan Moen
Dan is a new Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at Oklahoma State University, arriving in the fall of 2015. In his research, he address questions of diversification, phenotypic evolution, and community ecology, using amphibians and reptiles as study organisms. Particularly, he studies whole-animal locomotory performance of world anurans in the context of phylogenetic comparative analyses. OSU is lucky to have him. Dan is fluent in Spanish.
http://integrativebiology.okstate.edu/people/faculty/8-people/faculty/368-dan-moen
Elisa Cabrera-Guzmán
Elisa is a new Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at Oklahoma State University, arriving in the fall of 2015. She studies invasive species, biological interactions, ecology of freshwater environments, community ecology, habitat fragmentation, and conservation biology, mostly in herps. She is Mexican and bilingual in Spanish and English.
http://integrativebiology.okstate.edu/people/faculty/8-people/faculty/387-elisa-cabrera-guzman
Oklahoma turtles album
Patagonia album
Wink album
