Alarie (left) and Alex (right)

SUMMER RESEARCH 2021

This summer I've teamed up with a colleague up at the Natural Resources Research Institute in Duluth MN to conduct some non fish-related work (gasp!).  Michael Joyce, PhD and I attended the same grad program and always talked about conducting some work together. This summer he needed access to a few thousand acres for his grad student Taylor, and we hatched a plan to conduct some research of our own in the SJU arboretum.

Alarie uses a laser tool to measure drey height (right) Tree ID (left)

After interviewing many students, we selected Alexandria Armbrister and Alarie Chu for summer research students. The Bennies are investigating the thermal properties of grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) nests (dreys). Their work includes collection of temperature fluctuation data within the dreys via temperature loggers, drey-site selection data, assessment of the physical area surrounding dreys, and finally drey material analysis.

The main knowledge gaps for modeling squirrel rest site temperature and energetics are, 1) quantifying variation in drey size and biomass of nesting materials, and 2) gathering empirical data to develop/test a model.

Michael Joyce and myself in the field

Ultimately, this information will be integrated with an energetics model for the grey squirrel to evaluate interactions between resting behavior, ambient temperature, and daily energy expenditure.