The study, led by the University of California, Davis, is published in the journal Ecology and Evolution and was conducted in alpine regions stretching nearly 200 miles from Alpine County just south of Lake Tahoe, along the spine of the Sierra and south to Tulare and Inyo counties.

The study characterizes the niche space of three species of squirrel: the yellow-bellied marmot, Belding's ground squirrel and the golden-mantled ground squirrel. The authors analyzed nearly 6,000 observations of individual squirrels, collected from field survey data conducted over four years.

For this study, the "niche" describes all the conditions in the environment that are important for an animal to live in an area. Understanding the niche of animals helps scientists learn which changes are expected to most impact a species, and therefore, which animals may be most vulnerable to climate change.

"We're trying from a conservation perspective to understand what will happen to these species as the world changes," said lead author Aviva Rossi, who conducted the study while a UC Davis graduate student in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology. "A quantitative analysis of what makes a species able to live where it lives allows us to bring that information forward, and better understand differences between species."