Checking billy barr’s snow log…
Climate change is causing significant alterations to temperature and precipitation patterns, including more intense and frequent climatic events that can negatively impact species persistence. My overarching goal is to understand whether rapid evolution in response to accelerating climate change can rescue natural populations from extinction, leveraging the unique long-term data set amassed for Ipomopsis wildflowers in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Over 20 years ago, I determined that the genetic structure of this hybrid zone depends on a mixture of pollinator and habitat-mediated selection; in summer 2026 I will revisit Poverty Gulch, CO to measure the ecophysiological and floral traits that I've shown to influence fitness in this system, and determine if these populations have been able to track documented environmental change.