Interfacing a Microcomputer and Telemetry Equipment for Undergraduate Field Studies in Animal Ecology and Ethology

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With computer-automated telemonitoring equipment provided through this grant, the Wildlife Biology faculty of the Arkansas Tech University has created a facility for recording and analyzing the activities of radio- equipped animals at a 200-acre outdoor laboratory adjacent to the campus. The facility will provide students in ecology, animal behavior, and fisheries and wildlife management courses an opportunity to study daily and seasonal activity patterns, movements, habitat use, territoriality, dispersion, and social organization of the animals inhabiting this area. Instruments to be purchased for the facility include an integrated radio-telemetry system for the transmission and reception of each animal's location and activity, and an interfaced microcomputer for data storage and analysis. Use of the telemetry- computer system, in concert with traditional methods of wildlife observation, will provide a unique opportunity to supplement classroom learning with a dynamic, problem-oriented learning experience in the field. In addition to use in regular undergraduate courses, the facility will serve the needs of local high school biology teachers enrolled in in- service workshops, of upper-division students enrolled in individual directed-research projects, and of local area high school students participating in ATU's "gifted and talented" science program. This relatively low-cost effort promises to have an enormous impact upon the teaching of animal ecology and ethology in this institution, and to have a valuable spillover benefit for biology programs in the local high schools.