Meeting Abstract
Urbanization affects abiotic and biotic environmental conditions, which in turn affects the animals that live in those environments. One major consequence of urbanization is an increase in anthropogenic food sources in their diet. This can decrease body condition because these food sources have an insufficient nutrient content. Some species of squirrels have been shown to target anthropogenic food sources when living in urban environments such as trash cans, food on the ground in areas humans commonly eat, or being fed by humans directly. At Saint Mary’s College, a major source of anthropogenic food is the Noble Family Dining Hall. We predict that squirrels closer to the dining hall will have a higher body mass compared to those trapped further from the dining hall. We trapped squirrels on Saint Mary’s College campus from May – July 2019 and recorded body mass and the distance of capture location from the Noble Family Dining Hall. We then used a linear regression to determine if there was a trend in body mass as distance from the dining hall increased. We found no significant trends with either raw body mass or calculated residual body mass. This is likely because fox squirrel home ranges are large enough that all squirrels on campus have equal access to anthropogenic food sources, regardless of the distance of their capture site from the dining hall. In order to more accurately determine the effects of anthropogenic food sources we plan to continue to expand our data set including trapping squirrels in the Saint Mary’s Nature Area where squirrels have no access to anthropogenic food sources. Continuing this research will allow us to examine the effects of humans on local squirrel populations.
