Animals of OU

Students in OU’s BIO 4350/5386 Topics in Behavioral Biology course spent their semester surveying the mammals of Oakland University’s biological preserve.   

“To my knowledge, no one had previously done a thorough mammal survey of the preserve,” said course instructor Sandra Troxell-Smith, Ph.D., a special lecturer in the Department of Biological Sciences. “The class was able to get some very cool results about the critters in OU's own backyard.” 

She said that some of the sightings were typical – deer, coyote, turkeys, woodpeckers, etc. – but others, such as a flying squirrel and mink, were unexpected.

“The bio preserve is one of the jewels of our campus,” she added. “It’s a great place for student and faculty researchers to perform field work, and it certainly adds to the biodiversity of this geographic area.”

The wildlife photos were captured by motion-activated cameras. The class was divided into two teams, with each team placing cameras in areas of either “low” or “high” habitat fragmentation in the preserve near the R&S Sharf Golf Course on campus.

“Our team placed two cameras on well-traveled (high habit fragmentation) game trails on the southern end of the preserve,” said Hunter Craig, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Biological Sciences. “We hypothesized that the greater human presence and less area for food and shelter near the golf course would have a negative impact on animal community diversity.” 

Students tagged the photos using software from the Colorado Parks and Wildlife service. The software allowed for quick and effective tagging of the species and number of individuals in each photo, and also recorded vital information like photo date and time. The students will use the data to evaluate whether their hypotheses are substantiated.  

The class is made up of both graduate and undergraduate students. The graduate students were tasked with writing and presenting a grant proposal that incorporated an animal behavior component into their ongoing research.

“Not only does this allow grad students to identify areas they excel in or need to improve upon for their grant writing, but it also gives undergrads some early exposure to the grant writing and evaluation processes that they may encounter in their future pursuits,” Troxell-Smith said. 

Craig’s grant proposal focused on an experiment to gauge the effect of disease and temperature on frog behavior. While he has written grant proposals in the past, he said the class has made him more familiar with the process. 

“This is a great opportunity to help me identify areas of improvement in my writing,” he said. “I might follow up with an actual proposal to perform this experiment as a part of my doctoral research.” 

To learn more about programs and opportunities in the Department of Biological Sciences, visit oakland.edu/biology.