This is Dr. Newman explaining the different aspects of our data. More info below!
Small Mammal Findings
Here is our data for the last two weeks.
The two sites we trapped for small mammals were East Port and Cook’s Lake.
Findings for East Port:
We found that there was an average of 10.5 small mammals (Mainly Red Backed Voles with some chipmunks and mice)
Findings for Cook’s Lake
We found that there was an average of 3.35 small mammals. The weather was raining for most of the days we set our traps, which probably lowered the number we caught.
So how did we calculate this?
We used Mark and Recapture method. This means we marked the ones that we caught so if we caught them again, we would know they are not different. We designated a 100 meter by 100 meter area of land to lay the traps to give an estimate for the total area of each location. We then used the following equation to get a good estimate of our small mammal population.
(N+ R)
____ X Total # Marked Where N = the # that are newly captured
R Where R = the # that are recaptured
Journal Question # 11: Do the Math: How many is our population estimate?
Mice: #New = 4
# Recapture = 2
Total # Marked= 4
Vole: #New = 5
# Recapture =1
Total # Marked= 5
Deer findings:
Deer are allusive animals (they are hard to see and obviously catch) so the next best thing is to look for their droppings. This is what we did at Kejimkujik Park. We took 10 different sections of the park that were 10 meters by 10 meters to look for deer droppings. Here is the number of droppings we found in each quadrant: 0, 4, 7, 7, 5, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0. That is a total of 24 in 10 quadrants (10 quadrants equal 100 by 100 meter area or 1 hectare).
Use the following information to answer the question below:
- 1 quadrant is 100th of a hectare
- 1 deer = 20 sets of droppings per day per hectare
- Droppings last 40 days before they decompose. That means at any given time, there are 800 sets of droppings per deer per hectare.
- Kejimkujik National Park has 38,200 hectares
- We found 24 sets of droppings for 10 quadrants
Journal Question #12
(Show your work and you’ll get full credit no matter what the answer you come up with!)
Part A. What is the estimated deer population in Kejimkujik National Park?
Part B. Find the following:
The estimated deer population using just the FIRST 5 quadrants (0, 4, 7, 7, 5).
AND
Do the same thing using only the LAST 5 quadrants (0, 1, 0, 0, 0)
Part C. Compare your numbers of Part A and Part B. Connect this to the importance of the number of trials in a science experiment.
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