President’s Professor and renown conservationist Andrew Smith from the
ASU School of Life Sciences has been studying the biology and
environmental impacts of one particular animal for more than 30 years on
the Tibetan plateau.

Although the Chinese government treats the pika as an agricultural pest,
Smith believes the future of millions of people depends considerably on
the efforts to protect and restore the habitats of the diminutive
Tibetan pika (Ochotona curzoniae).

Over the past 40 years, the Chinese government has sponsored the
systematic poisoning of pikas in wintertime, most recently using grain
laced with botulin c strain toxin (Clostridium botulinum).

In the last three years, the poisoning area has grown to encompass
320,000 square kilometers – an area three quarters the size of
California. The Tibetan plateau represents 25 percent of the area of
China.

“It became very clear to me early on that in areas where they had
poisoned the pikas that most of the native species of mammals and even
ecosystem functions in the Tibetan plateau had disappeared or been
greatly diminished,” Smith says. “Given these observations, I framed the
plateau pika as a keystone species.”

When you couple the magnitude of the poisoning area with the role the
pikas play in the Tibetan plateau, the death of the pikas leads to
multiplied negative outcomes in the ecosystem.

Much of the work Smith and his graduate students have been doing in
recent years is to document different aspects of the pika’s biology and
its role as an ecosystem engineer.For example, there are few trees in
the plateau, so many species of birds use pika burrows as their nesting
grounds. When the pikas die, birds must nest elsewhere or die as a
result of exposure to poisoned burrows. Without the pikas, birds of prey
lose their major food source or die should they eat a poisoned pika.

Unfortunately, Smith’s conservation arguments and research for
protecting the Tibetan pika have not changed policies in China.
Therefore, Smith and his graduate assistant Max Wilson have now framed
the impetus to protect the Tibetan pika as an economic issue.

In 2010, thanks to funding and support from the Phoenix Zoo, Smith and
Wilson conducted hydrology research in the area, measuring infiltration
rates and contrasting areas where pikas live versus those where they
have been eliminated.

The data collected so far point to a direct correlation between the
killing of the pikas with increased probability of erosion, flooding of
rivers downstream and considerable negative economic impacts.

Sometimes called “The Roof of the World,” the Tibetan Plateau is the
birthplace of the Mekong, Huang He, Salween, Yangtze, Tsangpo and Ganges
rivers.

“What happens on the plateau, ultimately affects millions of people –
estimated as much as 40 percent of people in the world in the downstream
drainages of these rivers,” Smith says.

How do little pikas affect the biggest rivers in Asia? Aside from
serving as seasonal nests, pika burrows function as a network of
underground channels letting the soil breathe and absorb water like a
sponge.

“Think of it this way, what holds more water, a sponge or a rock? In
these areas water is now running off immediately instead of being slowly
released from the soil,” Wilson says.

Aside from the economic costs of poisoning pikas, Smith and Wilson hope
to show that the disappearance of the Tibetan pika will generate
additional costs due to damage from flooding and in turn loss of
agricultural production.

Moreover, long-term erosion will also have drought-like effects on the
region due to significant ground water retreat as water tables become
depleted.

“The interesting thing about water, especially compared to any other
ecosystem service in the world like phosphorus or nitrogen, is that it
is so singularly defined by where the water starts – and this is where
the water starts,” Wilson says. “We have to get that right before we can
get anything downstream correct.”

Smith and Wilson have completed their first year of work for what is
scheduled to be a two-year study in Tibet. In the past summer Smith and
Wilson worked on the drainages of the Mekong, Yangtze and Huang He
rivers.

Smith also has received a $1 million grant from the National Science
Foundation to conduct further ecological studies in the region along
with five other researchers. But the most pressing task in the coming
months will be to measure more river drainages and gather sufficient
data to demonstrate the link between pikas and the water resources of
Tibet.

Chakris Kussalanant, [email protected]
480-727-9181
ASU News