User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
My initial survey of a red squirrel’s area involved using rectangular quadrants that matched the property lines. I have since changed to using a circular survey of 25 metres distance each and using 5 quadrants. I have chosen this design to add more ‘natural’ boundaries to my survey since a red squirrel’s territory is oval in shape. I will be measuring the resources available in each quadrant from food availability, amount, cache areas, trees for both aerial walkways and protection from sky and ground predators. I see using a circular design with the small distances more informative as it also allows for a more detailed count of the resources in each area plus gives the distance of the food stuffs from the squirrel’s central ‘midden’.
The total area of 5 ha is slightly larger than a forest squirrel’s territory in a time of low food, but I believe the variety of food stuffs in an urban environment are far more than in the wild.
I am wondering why the red squirrel chose my woodpile as the central ‘midden’ or home cache considering there are a total of 5 wood piles in this area. I believe it might have to do with the fact that my wood pile is very close to my home while the others aren’t. This appears to be offering the squirrel more protection.
My predictor variable is the 1 red squirrel in this 5 ha territory. My response variable is the resources available to the squirrel. My hypothesis is that my wood pile is the best because it offers a central location to radial access to all the variety of food resources within the 5 ha. And I think a surprise will be that the human activity around my wood pile offers the squirrel more protection against predators.
Today is March 26, 2018, cool with a light snowfall. This morning I noticed a smaller squirrel head poking out of the wood pile while the larger squirrel sat above on top of a post. I believe the smaller squirrel is a female.
be sure to add some in-text references when you reference facts, eg. “area of 5 ha is slightly larger than a forest squirrel’s territory in a time of low food”
I wonder if the hypothesis might be hard to prove since it has a starting of assuming that the one woodpile is ‘best’
this is almost like doing a habitat study where one finds an animal living somewhere and tries to identify characteristics that support is choice of habitat
but a researcher wouldn’t want to assume that a particular characteristic is true without evidence first
I wonder if there might be observation bias – ie you see the woodpile as the centre but where else does the squirrel spend time? might need to follow the squirrel around to figure out where hthe centre of the squirrel’s world actually is
let’s take a look at the variables:
the red squirrel is your object of study, and the response variable will be the presence of this squirrel in time, size of midden?
the predictor variable will be the thing that predicts the responses (response variable) – so some characteristic, like availability of seeds, etc
just a few thoughts to help you along!