My Research Experience

By Tia Ravara

A brief video about my research experience on Team Squirrel, a behavioral ecology research group lead by Dr. Jennifer Smith. I explain my previous lab and field experience from 2023 and how I will incorporate it in future research.

Transcript:

Introduction

My name is Tia Ravara. I am a double major in Biology and Geology with Environmental Science Emphasis at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. In the fall of 2022, I became a Biology Research Scholar, where I was paid $2,300 in the summer of 2023 to do research with a UW Eau-Claire Biology professor. I was asked by Dr. Jennifer Smith if I would like to join her behavioral ecology research group called Team Squirrel. I explored her previous research experience and later accepted her offer. Dr. Smith’s research includes both field and lab components in her research projects that explore behavioral, demographic, genetic, and hormones of California Ground Squirrels.

Lab Work

There are multiple lab projects that include: analyzing flea and fecal samples, listening and identifying alarm calls, and tagging photos. Since January 2023, I have examined thousands of photos from 2020 through 2023 taken by camera traps to observe the species’ activity patterns. The camera traps were set up in two different field sites, one with more human activity and one with almost no human activity. This project allows us to examine how humans affect the wildlife activity patterns in the area. I presented a poster at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research (NCUR), hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire with three other students tagging photos on Team Squirrel. Through this experience at NCUR, I was able to present research on a national level and learn about research throughout the country.

Field Work

In order to collect lab data from California Ground Squirrels, a group of researchers go into the field. In the summer of 2023, I worked in California at Briones Regional Park on California Ground Squirrels with five other Biology Research Scholars. This was the first research project for the six of us; however, Dr. Smith and Dr. Sonja Wild, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of California-Davis, taught us how to do field research. We also collaborated with multiple students from UC Davis and Mills College at Northeastern University. On Monday through Wednesday, we would trap, tag, mark and collect fecal and flea samples from squirrels from 8am to about 3pm. Once we returned from the field, we organized the fecal and flea samples and prepared our equipment for the next day. On Thursday and Friday, we observed squirrel behavior social interactions from 8am to 12pm. After, we uploaded the observational data onto an excel spreadsheet.

Future Research

Currently, I am working with Dr. Smith and Dr. Wild and I hope to incorporate more camera traps into the field this year to observe if the activity patterns may have changed through the years. The McNair Scholars Program allows me to continue carrying out this research in the summer of 2024 by funding me and Dr. Smith.