Fieldwork and photography of ground squirrels begins in Logan Canyon

Fieldwork and photography of ground squirrels begins in Logan Canyon

By Claire Hubbard

A team of Utah State University professors will begin a study of Uinta ground squirrels’ adaptive responses to climate change in mid-April. The field site is located at the forestry field station in Logan Canyon.

The principal investigator of the study is Dr. Lise Aubry, a research assistant professor in the department of wildland resources at USU. Aubry’s two co-principal investigators will be Dr. Scott Bernhardt and Dr. Susannah French. Bernhardt and French are both professors of Biology at USU.

The team will be using a $20,000 National Geographic grant to help fund the study. Every year, the National Geographic Society awards limited and competitive funding for scientific field research.

According to Aubry, over a 50-year period, there have been changes to Logan Canyon in terms of increased opportunities for recreation, an overall warming of the area, but also less intense grazing.

“As small and insignificant as the changes might seem to some, this could have important consequences for hibernators, like the Uinta ground squirrel, which have been shown to be among the species that are most sensitive to even small changes to their environment,” Aubry said.

The field study will gather data from anesthetized ground squirrels. Each squirrel will be weighed, measured and tagged during the fieldwork. Biometric measurements will establish age and biological conditions.

“Visual observations of sex and reproductive status, such as female pregnancy and lactation, will also be noted,” Aubry said.

Fecal and blood samples from each squirrel along with brushing ectoparasites, such as ticks and fleas, will be collected. Analyzed samples will inform the scientists on the immune conditions, as well as genetic architecture of the population.

“This work will give us the mechanistic and interdisciplinary approach that involves demography, physiology, pathogens and genetics of the Uinta ground squirrels,” Aubry said. “We will be able to make some predictions regarding projected changes in climate, which affect hibernators in the future, and inform the public.”

The entire process from trapping to releasing is designed to minimize stress on the squirrels. All animal manipulations have been pre-approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees, according to Aubry.

In addition to the fieldwork, Carsten Meier, an assistant professor of photography at USU, will shoot photos to document the entire life cycle of Uinta ground squirrels.

Photographic panels will depict the life tasks of the animals during spring, summer and fall. 

“It will be interesting displaying three things happening in one panel,” Meier said.

Meier will focus on the habitats of the wilderness species and build a more consciously and corrected image to reflect current knowledge of the Uinta ground squirrel.

“My photography will build an interdisciplinary approach to make an investment for scientific endeavors that is comprehensible to the public,” Meier said.