Keeping Pace with Climate Change

The impacts of climate change can be complicated and far reaching. Here we are speak with Ryan Choi about the influence that climate change has on the interactions that occur within ecosystems. Ryan Choi is a PhD student at Utah State University. There, Ryan studies how climate change changes interactions between Arctic plants and the species that eat them. Specifically he looks at how warming temperatures influences when grasses grow, and how changes to that timing of growth impacts the migrating geese that rely on those grasses year after year. While it might not seem directly relevant to the Colorado Plateau, Ryan explains how changes in the Arctic have ripple effects to ecosystems across the globe.