(SC/BIOL2050) Squirrel abundance related to human disturbance

People included in this experiment were, in alphabetic order, Angela joseph, Brad Wismayer, Enrique Sapena Ventura and Hasam Hamam. Variables were measured in an urban nucleus, with high human disturbance, and in woodlots, which had almost none human disturbance, for 45 minutes each, from 3PM to 4:30PM each time. It was repeated two times in two consecutives fridays. First Friday it was raining, second Friday it was sunny. Urban nucleus included the proximities of the laboratory, Vari hall, and the roundabouts. Woodlots were chosen as the place in where we did our first experiments. Every variable was measured with observation and a map, that would tell which quadrat was the squirrel in. It's hypothesized that disturbance affects squirrel distribution, in a fashion that where high disturbance it's observated, no squirrel will be seen, due to stress; while we expect more squirrels in mildly disturbed urban areas, due to access to plenty of food resources and absence of predators. Last prediction is that, near urban nucleus, little quantity of squirrels is going to be found in wild areas, due to that they can access to more food resources in the mildly disturbed urban nucleus.