Co-Sponsored by The Sierra Nevada Research Institute and Western North American Naturalist.

This symposium will focus on the responses of Sierra Nevada forest organisms and ecosystems to increasing climate stresses. Talks and posters featuring either formal scientific studies or well-documented natural history observations are welcome. Presentations focusing on forest-adjacent ecosystems such as meadows and rivers are also welcome.

Potential topics could include:

• Influence of climate change on fire frequency, intensity, and/or species responses to fire
• Effects of total precipitation vs. snow amount on vegetation and streamflow
• Tree reproduction and seedling recruitment under changing conditions
• Animal responses to increasing temperature and drought
• Conservation genetics of keystone or rare Sierra Nevada species under climate change
• Dispersal ability and connectivity between protected areas under climate change
• Public understanding of climate change impacts on the Sierra Nevada mountains
• Challenges in managing species/ecosystems under changing condition, or techniques for doing so- ….and many others!

Participants will be invited to submit a paper related to their talk or poster to a special issue of Western North American Naturalist by May 2020; our aim is to gather at least 15 such papers. We also aim to have a diversity of institutions (academic and non-academic), career stages, focal organisms and ecosystems, and human demographics (age, gender, race/ethnicity, etc.) represented – therefore please share this announcement widely!