Sciurus is the genus name for most common tree squirrel species on many college campuses around the country. Scientific Collaborations In Undergraduate Research to Understand Squirrels was created as a ‘model’ science society to practice acting like a professional research biologist and to share insights about the lives of squirrels.
S.C.I.U.R.U.S. is coordinated from the campus of Willamette University, but collaborators from any campus at any level are encouraged to contribute to the conversation about squirrels.
I. Understanding Squirrel Behavior
Hopefully you have been opportunistically observing squirrels on and around campus to provoke your curiosity with the aim of generating interesting and testable questions about behavior. Although many people have consider aspects of animal behavior through the centuries, the current field of animal behavior or ethology is considered to have started with the work of the Dutch biologist Nikolaas “Niko” Tinbergen. Tinbergen shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with two others (Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz) because of elegant natural experiments that revealed evolutionary patterns in individual and social behavior of wild animals.
Tinbergen defined a basic framework for behavioral research in the overlapping fields of ethology, behavioral ecology, sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, comparative psychology, and neuroanatomy. He argued four categories of questions and two explanations exist for all behaviors. Ultimate explanations pertain to species level concerns.
1. Function (Adaptation) — How does the behavior impact on the animal's chances of survival and reproduction?
2. Phylogeny (History) — How does the behavior compare with similar behavior in related species, and how might it have arisen through the process of phylogeny?
Proximate explanations pertain to individual level concerns.
3. Causation (mechanism or cause effect relations) — What are the stimuli that elicit the response, and how has it been modified by recent learning?
4. Ontogeny (Development) — How does the behavior change with age, and what early experiences are necessary for the behaviour to be shown?
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin is a book that has influenced many researchers and was central to Darwin’s effort in addressing questions of human origins. Shrewd observers of wild animals continue to use all kinds of taxa, including squirrels, to better understand human biology.
Key questions worth considering:
1. Can you generate clear and testable questions about animal behavior? You should be able to fit each of your questions into one of Tinbergen’s categories.
2. Do your questions have clear statistical tests? Your questions are not really ‘testable’ until you can match your curiosity with a particular statistical tool. What do you know?
3. Are you able to strategically plan your research project? Planning for success in science is always hard, so part of the plan requires consideration what to do when you initially fail to get expected data.
