Gyrfalcons and Ptarmigan in a Changing World - Volume I

February 2011 Conference Proceedings1st volume of 2-volume setContents: overview of Gyrfalcons, ptarmigan, and the Arctic; papers specific to North America.Responding to the world's changing climate may be one of the most important and complex endeavors of the 21st century. Nowhere are the effects of climate change on biodiversity, ecology, and biotic interactions likely to be more measurable than in the Arctic, a region where the earliest responses are expected, and one where the relative simplicity of the environment and its biota can reveal processes in advance of those occurring elsewhere. Top predators, such as birds of prey, are often sensitive to environmental disturbance, and can sometimes serve as early indicators of threat and as models for conservation intervention. Gyrfalcons and their principal prey, ptarmigan, are widely distributed in the arctic ecosystem, and are therefore candidates for measuring, understanding, and potentially mitigating current and predicted changes in their world. Gyrfalcons and Ptarmigan in a Changing World, the proceedings of the February 2011 conference in Boise, Idaho, includes a conference summary presented by Professor Ian Newton, and over 70 research papers and related charts, graphs, and photos, authored by participants from Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, Russia, the United States, and other nations who gathered to share their findings. Gyrfalcons and Ptarmigan in a Changing World can be regarded as an important step toward a globally collaborative understanding of the ecology and conservation of avian predators and their prey within the context of the changing arctic ecosystem. Scientific perspective gained by the interaction of conference participants and reflected upon by the readers of these proceedings will form the foundation for investigations essential for understanding Gyrfalcon and ptarmigan ecology and how they are affected by climate change. These integrative endeavors, as well as those relating to the function of the larger ecosystem, are clearly germane to human well-being and wildlife survival in a changing world.