Backyard Bioblitz Predation Bias Field Experiment: Data & Meta-data

This experiment took place over 8 days from October 11th - October 18th, first in a yard in Nipissing First Nation, and then in a similar environment in North York. The goal of the experiment was to observe and compare the level of comfort demonstrated by animals in each environment around the researcher in an attempt to loosely quantify their perceived predation bias in the presence of humans and its effect on biodiversity. Level of comfort was approximated by using the distance between the observed species and the researcher. Organisms observed high up in trees or flying often have no available distance data due to the added height factor, which could not be accurately estimated. Observations in both locations took place for approximately one hour each day, for four days in each location in the afternoon beginning between 2:20 and 3:45pm. The weather from October 11th-14th in Nipissing First Nation was cool and sunny. On October 15th in North York it was cool and rainy, resulting in less observations. The remaining days in North York were cool and either sunny or overcast.