San Bernardino Northern Flying Squirrel Graphic Analysis

By Temur Imam

About Me

Born in Manhattan, NYC Moved to Tokyo, Japan when I was 7 years old and lived there until I was about

12. I moved back to town called Harrison, NY and then moved to Rye, NY where my family currently lives.

Favorite hobbies are surfing, snowboarding, and playing guitar. I fell in love with environmental science after taking AP Environmental Science

Junior year of high school. Currently, I am attending UC San Diego studying Environmental Systems. Coming to San Diego has been a lifelong dream and honestly I’m not sure if I’m

going back.

What this Internship meant and What I’ve Gained from My Experience Being given the opportunity to apply my academics first hand to conservation has truly been an amazing

experience. Researching literature to assist in the experimental design of the study really gave me a glimpse of how

research and conservation comes together. This internship has truly shown me that my love of science isn’t confined in a laboratory.

Going into the field, hiking to points, and gathering data is an adventure itself. I was able to see things people may never see in their lifetime and at the same time I was contributing to a project that I truly care about.

Now that you know a little about me, lets get down to it.

The Data

At the beginning of the study there were 15 sites, however we removed 2 sites because of lost habitat due to forest fires leaving us with 13 sites.

We set up camera traps at each of these sites, however we had to remove one of the sites because a bear ate the bait and camera on night 1, so the data for that sight is not applicable.

We understand that with only 12 data points there is a low sample size, however there is still valuable data within these sights that could uncover a pattern with squirrel presence and activity.

The Data

In our sample, we had three different forest types: Montane Hardwood Conifer, Sierren Mixed Conifer, and Montane Hardwood.

I then extracted the presence/absence data, total visits, total activity, and amount of time it took to find the bait and graphed the data in reference to forest types.

Because our sample size was small, I could not do any statistical analysis, however cross-referencing our data with forest type may help us uncover a pattern.

My analysis will help future individuals involved in the project to begin to gage in on what forest type the San Bernardino Northern Flying Squirrel may prefer in order to provide a habitat model for any possible future need for remediation or management.

The Data

I graphed the Presence and Absence at our 12 data points The Flying Squirrel was not present at all points, but was present at

all forest types.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 120

1

P/A

Total Amount of Visits

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101112

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Total amount of VisitsSMC

MHCMHW

Total Activity

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 120100200300400500600700800900

1000

Total Activity

Acti

vity

SMC

MHCMHW

Time it Takes to Find Bait

1 3 4 5 9 120

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Time it Takes to Find Bait

Tota

l Num

ber

of D

ays

SMC

MHCMHW

Results: Sierren Mixed Conifer

In our data set there were 3 points SMC points.

Of those points there was 1 point where the Flying Squirrels were present, giving it a success rate of about 33%

This point had a total 2 visits and an activity rate of 3

At this point it took 8 days to find the bait

Results: Montane Hardwood

In our data set there were 4 MHC points

Of those points there were 2 points where the Flying Squirrels were present giving this forest type a success rate of 50%

These points had a total of 11 visits and a combined activity rate of 15

Across the 2 points, the average time to find the bait was 26.5 days

Results: Mixed Hardwood Conifer

In our data set there were 5 MHC points

Of those points there were 3 points where the Flying Squirrels were present giving this forest type a success rate of 80%

These points had a total of 92 visits and a combined activity rate of 1159

Across the 3 points, the average time to find the bait was 3 days

Conclusion

After looking at the results, it seems very prominent that Montane Hardwood Conifer seems to be a forest type of preference.

It surpasses both other forest types in total amount of visits by the squirrel and activity rate

The average amount of days to find the bait being only 3 days could also suggest that they are highly present in this forest type because across all data points the northern flying squirrel found the bait much quicker than it did in the other forest types.

I hypothesize Sierren Mixed Conifer may be utilized by the flying squirrel second to mixed hardwood conifer and should not be out of consideration as good habitat type. Although it only had two visits, the squirrel only taking 8 days to find the bait may suggest that its utilizing this habitat type more than montane hardwood which, on average, the squirrel took 26.5 days to find the bait, but we need more data to conclude this theory.