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Video Q&A ViewAttendees 4

Physiology, Biochemistry, and Toxicology

Member Symposium

Dormancy and Changing Environments: Characterizing Responses to Temperature and Other Stressors On-Demand Presentations

Changing winters: the critical importance of snow

On-Demand
On-Demand
Snow decouples air and soil temperatures, providing a stable overwintering microclimate and modifying stress exposure for organisms that overwinter in the soil. Accounting for the impact of snow on the soil microclimate, particularly along environmental gradients of air temperature and snow cover, is critical to understanding how organisms will respond to climate change. Moving up a mountain, air temperatures decrease but snow buffering increases. Accounting for these opposing influences, we show that snow alters elevational gradients in cold and energy stress for overwintering ectotherms. Declining snowpack will increase cold stress disproportionately for mid-elevation populations. Untangling the complex interactions between snow, air temperature, and soil temperature across the landscape is critical to predicting the impacts of climate change in snowy environments.