An automated system for small mammal population monitoring

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My program aims to understand how ecology and demography interact with population genomic processes to both produce and constrain evolutionary change. I use the colonisations of cities by grey squirrels to address my questions. Urbanisation fragments populations, shapes dispersal patterns, alters selective pressures, and is replicated in space, which makes it an ideal natural experiment with which to explore local adaptation. My group’s current research focuses on quantifying how putatively adaptive alleles affect demographic, ecological, and life history variation in natural settings. Answering such questions in the best possible way requires both population-level DNA sequencing and intensive ecological monitoring of a large number of individuals across environments, entire lifetimes, and generations. Generating population genomic data is now straightforward. However, generating long-term year-round ecological data remains difficult. This is because it is not financially feasible for most research groups to hire a team of full-time permanent field technicians for daily trapping and tracking. I propose to solve this problem technologically with the proposed design and purchase of an automated monitoring system capable of year-round population monitoring of hundreds of marked squirrels. The automation means that this system is cost effective and sustainable over the long-term. Each year in Winnipeg my students and I inject >300 squirrels subcutaneously with radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips encased in biocompatible glass. The monitoring system I have designed takes advantage of this method of marking. It is comprised of 28 automated RFID microchip readers with antennas affixed to baited feeding boxes. Each unit logs date, time, ID, and location data for squirrels that pass through antennas. In addition, each unit will collect environmental and life history data (e.g., mass) and record visits by unmarked individuals, which is important for demographic modelling. Access to food can be restricted via a programmable scheduler so that availability can be made to mimic ephemeral food resources. Access to food can also be restricted to particular individuals based upon RFID codes, which allows for experimental feeding studies. Each unit automatically communicates all data to a server via cellular networks. Data generated by this system will greatly enhance the scope and impact of my new research program and my ability to continue to train HQP in the use of leading edge population monitoring systems, spatial demographic modelling, and population genomics. By providing the ability to link genomic selection to species ecology, this system will enable us to answer difficult to address questions about the pace, scale, and nature of local adaptation. In the long-term, data generated by this system will be the cornerstone of my research program.