Photo: Jeff Jones
The American Pika (Ochotona princeps) may be small and elusive, but this adorable mammal is an important part of mountain ecosystems in Glacier. They don’t hibernate during winter, so they have thick, warm fur — the tradeoff being that they’re quite sensitive to heat. As temperatures in the mountains rise, pikas are at risk. Donors to the Glacier Conservancy have been funding research on pikas in the park since 2008, enabling important long-term monitoring — and some exciting new findings, which you can read about in detail in this new StoryMap.
Pikas need a type of habitat called talus patches, which are jumbles of large rocks eroded from mountainsides. Talus creates networks of dark, cool nooks and crannies. Those spaces between rocks protect pikas from extreme temperatures, provide shelter from predators, and are where pikas stash food for winter.
Historically, American pikas lived across big parts of the north and southwestern U.S. In the past few decades, though, pikas at the southern edge of that range have been disappearing. Cooler parts of their range, like Glacier, may be refuges for pika — but those places are getting warmer too. So how are pikas in Glacier adapting?
That question sent Ph.D. candidate Lucas Moyer-Horner scrambling through Glacier from 2008-2010, when he and his team of researchers did the first-ever parkwide survey of pikas. They looked at maps and satellite imagery to determine the places pikas would most likely live — then they set out to find them “in the fur.”
Photo: Geneva Thompson
Resurveys thanks to GNPC
15 years later, donors to the Conservancy made it possible for those same researchers to revisit 173 of the original pika survey sites. Dr. Gavin Jones, original field crew member and now a professor with the University of Iowa, led the study, along with now-Dr. Lucas Moyer-Horner of Kenyon College. In addition to seeing whether pikas still lived at each site, the field crew measured habitat characteristics like talus depth, temperature, and vegetation availability.
The past 15 years have been the hottest on record, so comparing the two data sets is a good way to see how climate change affects pikas in Glacier. Donor support also enabled Glacier’s Research Learning Center to test out citizen science as a means for monitoring pikas long-term. Citizen scientists surveyed pika sites to fill in gaps for researchers and collected lots of pika poop! Through genetic analysis of pika scat, we can learn how pikas across the park are related and what food sources they’re relying on.
Photo: Geneva Thompson
Big questions about little critters
Some of the questions researchers were pursuing with these re-surveys and scat analyses include:
- Would they find pikas in the same places as before?
- Would there be more or less of them?
- Are pika populations more affected by regional warming, or by local conditions at the talus patch-level?
- How are pikas in the park related, and how do they move around over the generations?
To explore these questions, pika crew member and master’s student Dani Owens built statistical models to test how strong the relationship was between different factors that could influence pika populations.
How did pikas in Glacier change over 17 years?
Across the two survey periods (2008-2010 and 2023-2025), researchers found that the number of sites occupied by pikas increased, with a net gain of 11 occupied sites. Sites where pikas persisted since the original study period had a higher average density of pikas than before. These results support the importance of Glacier’s high country as a pika stronghold in the western U.S.
What affected changes in pika populations?
Overall, changes in where pikas were had more to do with regional climate trends and how easily pikas could move from one talus patch to another. Those factors, in addition to patch size, were also closely associated with finding pikas at a given site during both survey periods. Pikas are solitary and highly territorial, defending home ranges of about 400 square meters. The bigger the talus patch, the more pikas can stake out a home in it. Young pikas need to strike out on their own, so the route from one talus patch to a new one is also important.
Changes in how many pikas lived at a given site were more closely associated with conditions on the ground — things like temperature, talus depth, and vegetation availability. Temperatures in the nooks and crannies under the talus were, on average, 9.7°C cooler than the ambient air during the heat of the day. This underlines the importance of Glacier’s talus as a refuge for these heat-sensitive mammals and could help us make decisions about how to protect pikas in the future. Peruse the Plight of the Pika StoryMap to dig more into this research!
What about pika poop?
Looking for genetic patterns in the DNA found in pika scat can help us understand how pikas in different parts of the park are related, and how they disperse and diversify their gene pool. Using this information, we can predict where pikas might move in the future as the climate continues to warm.
Pika pellet genetic analysis of nearly 800 samples found three distinct genetic clusters in the park — one primarily in the northwestern portion of the park, another in the northeast, and the third in the southeast. Looking closer, we can see what proportion of an individual pika’s DNA belongs to which cluster, providing insight into how pikas from different subpopulations are finding each other.
As a bonus study, Dr. Lucas Moyer-Horner had his undergraduate students analyze the DNA of pika gut bacteria from some of the scat samples. This gave us a picture of their gut microbiome and how it varied for pikas in different parts of the park.
Photo: Geneva Thompson
What’s next?
Thanks to your help, we have groundbreaking insight into how pika populations have changed in Glacier over the past 16 years, their family tree, and a blueprint for long-term monitoring. This research will help park managers and scientists discover even more about pikas and what we can do to help them thrive in Glacier. There may be no better place in the world to study pikas and their reaction to environmental change — and you’re a part of that effort!
For more information, check out this StoryMap about pika conservation and Glacier National Park citizen science.
How can you support Pika Research in Glacier?
This project and many other critical projects and programs would not be possible without your donations to the Glacier Conservancy.
Donate now to support important work like this in Glacier National Park!
