Poster Details
INCORPORATING THE GENETIC LEVEL OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY INTO ASSESSMENTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON MOUNTAIN STREAMS
Mountain streams and their biological diversity are likely sentinels of climate change impacts. Expected changes include range shifts and local extirpation, which will in turn lead to changes in mountain stream communities. There is a need to understand the current status of mountain stream biodiversity at all levels from genes to communities to better assess any future changes and identify potential refuges for mountain stream biodiversity. While most work linking climate change and mountain stream biodiversity has focussed on the species or community level, few studies have analysed the genetic level of diversity in these systems. I will outline the need for incorporating genetic diversity into our biodiversity assessment in mountain streams and present cases studies and ongoing projects that exemplify how this integration can be achieved.
Steffen Pauls (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, Frankfurt, Germany, steffen.pauls@senckenberg.de;
Jacqueline Heckenhauer (Primary Presenter/Author), LOEWE Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics; Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, Frankfurt, Germany, jacqueline.heckenhauer@senckenberg.de;