Footprint Trap: A Measure of Abundance, Species Richness, and ANOVA Between Mammal Species in Townhouses and Woodland Areas at Saint Michael’s College

Dana DiPinto Community Ecology 10-30-12 Lab

Abstract

In this experiment we hypothesized that the woodland area would have a higher abundance and species richness than the townhouses at Saint Michael’s College due to effects of human interaction. Our testing sites were the woodland area across the street from Saint Michael’s College and the townhouses on the campus. Baited footprint tracking stations were used to record mammal footprints and were collected and replaced daily for two weeks. When the observation period ended all footprints were identified and analyzed. The mammal diversity was measure through abundance, species richness, and a one-way ANOVA test for analysis of variance. After analyzing all data we concluded that there was in fact a higher abundance and species diversity at the woodland site. Also our p-value showed a significant difference in variance at both sites. Our hypothesis that the woodland site would have a higher abundance and species richness was supported by this experiment and the main factor was human interaction at the townhouses.

Introduction The experiment that we conducted as a class involved using footprint traps to measure abundance, species richness, and ANOVA of the Townhouses and Woodland areas of Saint Michael’s College campus. There are many different ways in which an ecologist can find data when documenting natural communities. According to the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, a natural community is defined as, “An interacting assemblage of plants and animals, their physical environment, and the natural processes that affect them. As these assemblages of plants and animals repeat across the landscape wherever similar environmental conditions exist, it is possible to describe these repeating assemblages as natural community types (VFWD, 2003)”. In this experiment we will only be dealing with the mammals at our sites, so plants would not apply. The two areas that we chose to look at were the Townhouses on campus and the Woodland area directly across the street from Saint Michael’s College. These are good sites to test because they are both natural communities in which mammals interact and live. Also this will give us the ability to test the townhouse area on campus where there is a large human interaction, and the woodland area where there is very minimal human interaction. “There are many cases when ecologists rely upon direct observation of live individuals in the wild, live-trapped individuals, or preserved specimens (McCabe, 2012)”. The term “collect” generally refers to trapping, killing, or preserving individual specimen. In this experiment we will do none of the following. Instead we will be using baited track stations that will allow the mammal to step into a trap collect its footprint and exit safely, unharmed in any way. This is not the first time that the footprint method has been conducted in an experiment; however in most of the other studies they did trap their specimen for direct live observation. An experiment that was done in Buenos Aires in 2003, showed all of the possible ways in which you can observe mammals and their interaction with natural communities. The experiment showed techniques in which you could test and monitor for abundance in urban environments of Buenos Aires. The abundance was tested by counting burrow entrances, active individuals, kill capture with glue traps, live capture with cage traps, and by comparing bait consumption in bait stations (Cavia, 2003). This experiment is significant because is shows all of the different ways in which you can observe mammals and their interaction within natural communities. To avoid ethical concern and criticism our study only deals with baited track stations, that leave the mammals unharmed only capturing their footprints for data analysis. Another experiment that supports abundance and species richness differentiations using footprint traps would be one titled, “"Mammals of medium and large size in a fragmented cerrado landscape in northeastern Minas Gerais state, Brazil (Lessa, 2012)”. Although this study takes place in Brazil it still serves as a significance because it shows positive differentiation between abundance and species richness using footprint traps. Leonardo Lessa used the methods of footprint traps, and looking for mammal signs in his experiment (Lessa, 2012). Direct observation was shown through footprints or feces (Lessa, 2012). This experiment would be considered significant and provides evidence supporting effects of mammal diversity by showing different abundance and richness differentiations. The difference between this study and Cavia’s of Buenos Aires is that, Lessa does not harm or trap any mammals but only uses direct observation to record data. This is exactly the way we set up our study so that we could avoid ethical judgment from the community. As you can see there are many studies out there that support the use of footprint trapping. Although some of them may be more ethical than others they all seem to be effective and show positive results. We predict that there will be a higher abundance, species richness in the woodland area opposed to the townhouses due to human interaction on mammal diversity.

Materials and Methods The abundance and species diversity in this experiment was found through the results of human activity on mammal diversity. We did this using footprint traps and set out track stations, which consisted of a plastic tent with an opening at one end. The other end of the tent was covered with wire mesh that prevented the animal from going straight through the tent. Starting at the entry of the tent, there will be a square tray with black chalk in it. Next the animal will encounter a sheet of contact paper (sticky-side-up) that will collect the animal’s footprint. The bait that we used to draw the animal into the tent was a single dog treat. Next we went to set up the procedure for our experiment. To do this we set up these trap stations at the woodland area across from Saint Michael’s College, and on the college campus outside Townhouses (100’s, 200’s, and 400’s). A total of fourteen traps were put out between the Woodland and Townhouses, seven at each site. Each day the traps that were occupied were collected and a new treat and contact paper was applied to the trap. This was done by pairs of students throughout the two week observation period. The traps were observed for footprints over a two week (14-day) period. To preserve the footprints, when they were collected they were transferred to a transparency paper where each student wrote: trap #, date, and location. The last step to our experiment consisted of data analysis. Once the two week observation and data collection period was concluded we analyzed the data for our footprint traps. To analyze our data we started by identifying all of the footprints that were found and collected. Once all of the footprints were identified we put our data in an excel sheet and compared the difference between our two sites (Woodland and Townhouses). We did this by finding the abundance, species richness, and a t-test was done to show differentiation.

Results

|Number of mammal species found |
|Townhouses |Woodland |
|6 |10 |
|7 |8 |
|9 |10 |
|10 |11 |
|5 |13 |
|5 |11 |
|8 |11 |

Table 1.) This table shows the data that was collected to show the number of mammal species found between the Townhouses and Woodland areas at Saint Michael’s College.

[pic]

Graph 1.) This graph shows the abundance differentiation between the Townhouses and Woodland areas at Saint Michael’s College

|Number of different mammal's species found |
|Townhouses |Woodland |
|1 |2 |
|2 |3 |
|2 |3 |
|2 |2 |
|2 |2 |
|1 |3 |
|1 |3 |

Table 2.) This table shows the number of different mammal’s species found between the Townhouses and Woodland areas at Saint Michael’s College.

[pic]

Graph 2.) This graph shows the species richness differentiation between the Townhouses and Woodland areas at Saint Michael’s College.

|Anova: Single Factor | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|SUMMARY | | | | | |
|Groups |Count |Sum |Average |Variance | | |
|Townhouses |7 |11 |1.571429 |0.285714 | | |
|Woodland |7 |18 |2.571429 |0.285714 | | |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|ANOVA | | | | | | |
|Source of Variation |SS |df |MS |F |P-value |F crit |
|Between Groups |3.5 |1 |3.5 |12.25 |0.004382 |4.747225 |
|Within Groups |3.428571 |12 |0.285714 | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Total |6.928571 |13 | | | | |
| | | | | | | |

Table 3.) This table shows the one-way ANOVA test found in MS Excel. The ANOVA test is a test of analysis of variance between two or more different subjects, in our experiment (Townhouses and Woodland).

[pic]

Graph 3.) This graph shows the ANOVA test results as an analysis of variance between the Townhouses and Woodland areas of Saint Michael’s College. Error bars were added, standard error was the same at (0.2).

Results (Narrative) If you look at both table and graph 1, you can see that there is a definite difference in abundance between the townhouses and woodland areas. The graph for abundance shows a consistent higher abundance per trap in the woodland area opposed to the townhouses. Table and graph 2, are associated with species richness in both the townhouses and woodland areas. Once again there is a definite difference in species richness between the two sites. The woodland also has a consistently higher species richness per trap according to graph 2. The last test that was produced with the data we received is available in table and graph 3. This shows the one-way ANOVA test for townhouses vs. woodland at Saint Michael’s College. Our p-value of (0.004382) shows a conclusion that there is a significant difference among the two sites tested. We could have assumed this because of our differentiations between abundance and species richness, but the ANOVA is another great test to show an analysis of variance among these two sites (townhouses and woodland).

Discussions & Conclusions

The data and results from our experiment do support our hypothesis that the woodland would have a higher abundance and species diversity than the townhouses. We concluded that this was because of the human interaction that occurs on the townhouses site and could have affected mammal diversity. Our p-value of (0.004382), from the one-way ANOVA test shows us that there is a significant difference between the townhouses and woodland areas that were tested at Saint Michael’s College. Both other experiments that were presented by Regino Cavio, and Leonardo Lessa both use foot printing methods to find a difference in abundance and species richness at their sites (Cavia, 2003) (Lessa, 2012). This goes to tell us that foot printing can be an effective way to portray mammal diversity at different sites. Furthermore, this explains that human activity can have a significant effect on mammal diversity at two opposing sites (one with high human interaction and one with minimal human interaction). Another study that dealt particularly with human interaction and mammal species richness also supports our hypothesis that human interaction was a significant factor in variation. Marcia Real states in her results section of her study that, “For marsupials, human activity explains the greatest part of the variation in SR. “The purely environmental and purely human influences on all mammal SR explain a similarly high proportion of the variation in SR, whereas the purely spatial influence accounts for a smaller proportion of it (Real, 2003)”. In conclusion this study serves as evidence that human interaction and activity definitely has a significant effect on mammal diversity and species richness in a natural community. Some points of era in this experiment that have to be accounted for would first be the weather. There were some days with harsh weather conditions that may have caused some mammals to hide out and not observe the traps stations. Only testing one area with human interaction could have also limited our results. If there were multiple area’s that contained human interactions than our results could have been much more evident. As far as repeating this experiment I would definitely change some of the variables to try and strengthen our results. First I would extend the data collection of our footprints from 2 weeks to a month. This would give us more results and data over a longer period of time which would be seen at a higher significance. Finally I would test different concentrations of human interaction. This would be a great addition to the study that we have already done. I would do this by setting footprint traps in areas of low, medium, and high human interaction. This would help deviate not only between areas of complete human interaction and no human interaction, but different levels of human interaction and if there is a trend. In conclusion, there was a significant variation between the townhouses and woodland area of mammal diversity at Saint Michael’s College. Human interaction is our proposed reason for the woodland site having a much high abundance and species richness. This was supported by other studies that also show human interactions affecting mammal diversity. Therefore, areas of human interaction tend to have a negative effect on mammal diversity opposed to areas of no or very minimal human interaction.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Professor McCabe for all of his preliminary work as far as setting up for lab, helping identifying footprints and also answering any questions that came up throughout the process. I would also like to thank the rest of my class for collecting, resetting the traps and sharing their data. Finally, I would like to thank Saint Michael’s College for providing the research facility and lab equipment making it possible for us to complete our experiment.

Literature Cited

Cavia, Regino, Gerardo Rubén Cueto, and Olga Virginia Suárez. "Techniques to Estimate Abundance and Monitoring Rodent Pests in Urban Environments." ©2003

Lessa, Leonardo G., et al. "Mammals of medium and large size in a fragmented cerrado landscape in northeastern Minas Gerais state, Brazil." Check List 8.2 (2012): 192-196.

McCabe, Declan, Professor of Community Ecology at Saint Michael's College, Laboratory activity handout, Effects of human activity on mammal diversity: AKA “The incredible footprint lab”, www.smcvtonline.edu

Real, R., Márcia Barbosa, A., Porras, D., Kin, M. S., Márquez, A. L., Guerrero, J. C., Javier Palomo, L., Justo, E. R. and Mario Vargas, J. (2003), Relative importance of environment, human activity and spatial situation in determining the distribution of terrestrial mammal diversity in Argentina. Journal of Biogeography, 30: 939–947

Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, Natural Heritage Environments- Community Level, Natural Communities, Copyright © 2003-2012, http://www.vtfishandwildlife.com/cwp_elem_comm_nc.cfm