Major: Third Year, Environmental Studies Concentrated in Conservation Science and Policy
Internship: Mammalian Diversity and Behavior
Focus on in relation to conservation: I want to focus on the impact small mammals have in the lives of humans and their importance to their respective ecosystems. I also want to connect this research to environmental racism and the consequences that colonization has had on the lives of these mammals.
See the abstract to my presentation at the 2022 EEB Undergraduate Research Symposium
Increased urbanization has many detrimental effects on the environment, including habitat fragmentation and changes in animal behavior. One particular behavior that is affected is animal boldness, which we predict to be higher in urbanized areas. We measured boldness using flight initiation distance (FID), which is the distance that a squirrel will allow you to get to them before running away. We found that California ground squirrels did in fact have a shorter FID in urbanized areas vs. in rural areas.