Location: My backyard in Winnipeg, Manitoba, 49.799020 and 97.14482282
Day: April 24th, 2023
Time: 15:30- 17:45
Weather: 5 degrees Celsius with a wind speed of 2.1 m/s and humidity 43%. A cloudy day with a light breeze.
- The organism I choose to study is a red squirrel.
- I choose three different locations in my backyard each containing squirrels in variable numbers with different competitors and an abundance of food.
The first location is the tree planted in the backyard which is frequently nested and visited by birds and squirrels with low food resources
The second location is the ground covered with cones of the pine trees adjacent to the fens with foraging by jackrabbits at this location co-existing with squirrels with a high abundance of food resources due to falling off cones from trees outside and adjacent to the fence
The third location is the deck in the backyard with no competition and only visited by red squirrels with a high abundance of food.
- Hypothesis: Squirrel foraging activities decrease with an increasing number of competitors.
I predict that the squirrel population thrives at the location near and on deck.
- Potential response variable: number of squirrels (continuous)
Potential explanatory variable: the presence of competitors and abundance of food (categorical)
The experimental design will be logistic regression.
Red squirrels are a good species for a study in this course. Your hypothesis and prediction are different and your prediction should be derived from your hypothesis. Your hypothesis includes the piece and the pattern though go back and look at the tutorial again as your hypothesis also is starting to sound like a prediction. Your prediction is totally different and you will not be able to measure whether a population thrives in this study.
There is a slight problem with your variables as well. You have a measure of squirrels as a potential response and predictor variable and they can’t be the same. Your hypothesis is about squirrel foraging activity being influenced by the number of competitors so a measure of foraging activity should be your response variable and the number of competitors should be your predictor variable. However, you will have to put some thought into how to measure foraging activity and what is considered a foraging behaviour.
Also, keep in mind that your study must be observational and you can not feed animals in your study as this would require animal care approval and we do not have that for this course.