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Blog Post 6: Data Collection
The field data collections at the View Royal Park have been occurring over multiple days at various times of the day. Squirrel abundance in response to dog walking has been measured. Data collection started on Saturday, February 23, 2019, while the weather was clear but chilly. following collections happened on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 10:00, 1330, and 0700 respectively. The weather was clear and windy at approximately 4-5 degrees Celsius.
The predictive variable, dogs, will be organized into intervals of 0-1, 2-4 and 5+ dogs present at the park. The number of squirrels observed within these intervals will be measured and analyzed.
Each interval will be replicated at least 4 times. therefore data collection will continue until each interval (0-1, 2-4 and 5+ dogs at the park) has been noted and squirrel abundance has been measured 4 times within the intervals.
The most difficult part of implementing the sample design is the uncertainty of the number of dogs present at the park at a time. Without the ability to manipulate the number of dogs present data collection must be done over many days and times of the day.
Over four days of data collection patterns appear to support the hypothesis that squirrel abundance declines in presence of dogs as they pose a threat of predation. Although, The outlying intervals of 0-1 and 5+ have much higher replicate data than the median interval of 2-4. Number of humans without dogs in the park have also been collected as a control to show that the decrease in squirrels is not due to humans alone. The number of humans has shown no effect of squirrel abundance so far in data collection.
