Help us learn more about food hoarding animals |
About the Auburn Squirrel Project
Relying on stored food
Scatterhoarders are animals that you see burying nuts and seeds during fall, such as squirrels, chipmunks, and chickadees. This stored food is an important resource for these animals to eat during winter when plants are no longer producing those foods. A lot of research has been done on individual populations of food hoarding animals, however few studies have looked at this behavior on a larger scale and how behaviors change across a species' range.
Eastern Gray Squirrels
Eastern gray squirrels are the squirrels typically seen in city parks and at birdfeeders. These squirrels are scatterhoarders that are found all over the eastern half of the United States, up into Canada and even down to South America. Such a wide range means this species is found in a wide variety of environmental conditions. In areas with long winters, squirrels would be relying on stored food as their only source of nutrition for a much longer period of time, so it is important to have a larger amount of food buried to survive the winter. Squirrels living in warmer areas of their range experience warmer, shorter winters and shouldn’t have to rely on scatterhoarded food for as long due to tree growth beginning earlier and food becoming available sooner in the spring.
Our Study
We are compiling data on the amount of time eastern gray squirrels spend scatterhoarding food across their range to look for differences in adaptations to local environments and winter conditions. We have already gathered some evidence that squirrels living in areas with colder, longer winters spend more of their time burying food during the fall than squirrels that live in warmer areas with much shorter, less severe winters.
This citizen science project is a part of valuable research about food hoarding animals conducted by Biology PhD student at Auburn University, Sarah Wilson, under the direction of Dr. Todd Steury and Dr. Steve Dobson.
This citizen science project is a part of valuable research about food hoarding animals conducted by Biology PhD student at Auburn University, Sarah Wilson, under the direction of Dr. Todd Steury and Dr. Steve Dobson.
Volunteers Needed!
We are recruiting volunteers to watch gray squirrels and collect data on what they are doing, based on predefined behaviors!
Volunteers would be encouraged to:
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Please share this project with everyone!
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