Biodiversity monitoring in Kluane National Park (Canada)

The Community Ecological Monitoring Program (CEMP) is one of the oldest and most reputable long-term biodiversity monitoring programs in the world. The CEMP, which has more than 40 years to develop Kluane National Park, was created by Dr. Charles Krebs, professor at the University of Brithish Columbia (Canada), eminent ecologist world was meant to provide paradigms of ecology of communities and populations. This project aims to make the operation of the boreal forest communities in Yukon (Canada) and the impact that environmental changes have a global and long term. Our participation in the program has two objectives: to move our country methodologies for long-term monitoring and to carry out a research on the boreal forests of Yukon in the framework of the CEMP.

Specifically, we aimed at determining the diet of lynx and coyotes, their predation rates on hares and other potential preys and survival rates of these predators. This should reveal if the changes observed in these interspecific relationships are circumstantial or whether these are linked with global changes. Our participation in this program is thanks to the specific project ‘The ecology of boreal ecosystem in Kluane and specifically with the relationship between the raptor community and the snowshoe hare cycle’ (545700-EM-1-2013-1-ES-ERA) of the program Erasmus Nova Domus-CHEMOPROD. This Erasmus program from the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Union, coordinated by the University of Barcelona, has allowed the exchange between American and European universities. Besides, our participation has also received the support from the University of Brithish Columbia and the Arctic Institute of North America.