New Paper and Eli's Journey

More news from the world of flying squirrel research in southern New Brunswick. 

I have just published a new paper in Biological Conservation (Dec 2013 edition) on the ability of flying squirrels to cross clearcuts. 

It is the first paper to experimentally test the crossing ability of a gliding mammal. 

It was a ton of work and many technicians helped with this project.  We communicated every 5 min via radio...relaying coordinates, bearings and signal strength.  You entered a strange meditative state after a while.

Many flying squirrels took several hours to finish the experiment-cross the clear cut and others took 5 hours.  The first night we tried it the squirrel (named- Marcus) went the opposite direction and we followed through a thick plantation in the dark.. it returned back to it's home tree almost 30 days later.  I was very worried about the project...however the next time we tried.. the experiment worked -the squirrels either tried to cross or go around the clearcut after 30-1hr.

About 60% of the squirrels detoured rather than crossed.

It is difficult to know how animals will react to habitat change.  Experimental studies like this one help really help us understand connectivity from an animals point of view.

Here is a link to the paper on Research Gate https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Matthew_Smith6/publications/

or email me directly (fundyflyingsquirrel@gmail.com)for a copy. 

Matt

Here is a picture of one of the clearcuts that we moved flying squirrels over.  We called this one Irving Sign- since it is near a large Irving Sign talking about reforestation.  This spot was once tolerant hardwoods and has been planted in a softwood mix.  This was one of the larger clearcuts and we released a squirrel (Eli) on the far side to see if it would cross or go around.

 

Here is a picture of Eli after he went around the clearcut.  He was was in a new den tree but was located pretty close to where we captured him.  They have an amazing ability to navigate and find there way back home..

Gliding Flying Squirrel Movies

Life post PhD is good.  I am working on getting some more reseach papers published.  Here are some fun movies of flying squirrels gliding that we were lucky enough to see during our field research.

After years of trying to get a good glide on film this is the best.  It was taken by Sophie on the last few days of trapping.  She was a masters student from France that came to Canada to volunteer on the flying squirrel project in 2008.  You can also hear the voice of Wil Brunner.  Another great flying squirrel crew alumni.

Flying squirrels are normally not active during the day making it almost impossible to see a glide.  These movies were taken after a flying squirrel was released from a live trap (set during the night). Usually they are a little dozy when released- so we would give the tree a little tap to get them moving. I was always worried that a crow or hawk might pick them out of the tree if they sat up there too long  (it actually happened once..that is another story).

Here is another movie that was taken at the beginning of my research in 2006.  A student from Parkview Education Centre on a class trip took this video.  

Northern Flying Squirrels Do have Multiple Litters!

A note of mine was published in the most recent copy of Northeastern Naturalist "Evidence of Multiple Annual Litters in Glaucomys sabrinus (Northern Flying Squirrel)" by Matthew J. Smith, Graham J. Forbes, and Matthew G. Betts

It has long been suspected that northern flying squirrels like southern flying squirrels and can have more than one litter a year.  Determining the fecundity of flying squirrels is a challenge due to the difficulty of finding nest trees and climbing up trees to count the pups. Our paper was the first to show that flying squirrels can have another litter after successfully raising the first.  One of our radio-collared squirrels (151.820 or "Petunia") had 5 pups in spring and another litter of 5 in the fall.  Quite a handful!

Here is a link to the paper.

http://www.eaglehill.us/NENAonline/articles/NENA-18-3/21-Smith.shtml

We tried to use nest boxes as an easier way to attract female flying squirrels and count pups- but they seemed to prefer the natural cavities.  From 100 nest boxes we only were found 3 active nests with young.  The picture above shows one adult female looking out.  She was protecting four pups.

 This is a typical crack nest in a yellow birch.  Very difficult to reach in.  My arms were stretching while I stood on the last rung of the ladder. Not particularly safe.

Here are the pups from the above nest.  They were 17g in weight, had closed eyes with short hair and thin tails.  I estimated their age to be about 2.5 weeks.

Thesis Finished!!

The defense is over and thesis submitted.  The long journey is now finished.  Thanks to all the very hard work by a dedicated field staff including: 

Michael Avery, John-William Brunner, Blair Cabot, Sophie Cauvy, Patrick Coleman, Cate Champion, Heather Fleming, Glen Forbes, Matt Hadley, Angela Freeman, Justin Léger, Kiyono Katsumata, Scott Leblanc, Mathieu McCann, Shavonne Meyer, Carolyn Richardson, Trina Rytwinski, Gioia Serena, Eric Shaffer, Bryan Taylor, Karen Tomkins, and Jeremy Thibodeau.

Thanks to all of my family and friends for support, especially my wife Lindsey.  Having three small children while doing fieldwork is really crazy...but we did it!

Nearing the end!

I have submitted my thesis and waiting for my defense date to be set. I am also in the process of submitting papers from my thesis. One chapter has already been published in Landscape Ecology. The link to the abstract.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/0xl7532qg62152p3/

In a nutshell...we found that mature forest is important for the movement of flying squirrels- we found this out by moving flying squirrels (translocation) varying distances across different landscape types (low to high amounts of mature forest and connectivity).

Another paper will be published this month in Northeastern Naturalist on the evidence of double litters in Northern Flying Squirrels. I will post a copy when it comes out.

A big thanks to everyone (the many many field workers) who helped me over the years, and especially my family- Lindsey, Ira, Hannah and Esme.

It was an adventure!

Matt

Hello,

It is fall again, and unlike the past four years, I am no longer trapping. Yes even PhD field seasons come to an end. It feels strange.

Last summer and fall was very busy and I trapped lots of squirrels in both fragmented and contiguous plots. Numbers however, were much lower than in 2006 and 2007. I have am working on writing up my final results for the survival and movement analysis. One of the most exciting things that we found last year was the occurence of five double litters. This has not been reported before for flying squirrels.

Here is a picture of 3 baby flying squirrels found in a nest outside of Fundy National Park. They are about 40g in size (teenagers). A bit hard to hold on to!

Cheers,
Matt

Crew from 2007!

Truffles (some squirrel food) Picture by Dr. David Malloch

Looking for Field Technicians and Team Leader

LOOKING
FOR WILDLIFE BIOLOGY EXPERIENCE?
The Greater Fundy Ecosystem Research Group (University of New Brunswick) is hiring 1 crew leader and 4 field technician positions to work from June until Nov /2008 (shorter time periods may be possible) in Fundy National Park, New Brunswick on a northern flying squirrel (Glaucomys sabrinus) research project. Work will consist of running live-trapping grids, radio-tracking of collared flying squirrels and nest-box monitoring.

Applicants should:

Be physically fit.
Have a strong interest in ecology and conservation.
Have a valid driver’s license.
Be responsible, hard working, and enjoy working in the great outdoors.

Applicants should have knowledge/experience in:

Fieldwork and data collection.
Establishing sampling grids (GPS and compass skills)
Basic plant identification (mushroom id an asset)
Radio-telemetry (an asset)
Mammology (an asset)
Mark-Recapture techniques (an asset)

Pay is $1,200/month for field technicians, $1,400/month for crew leader (room and board is covered by the project). Send resume by email/or for more information contact: Matthew Smith at matthew.smith@unb.ca

Deadline for Application: April 11/08