Hauling field gear up Gothic Mountain…
Since 2001, I have had an approved UCLA protocol to study antipredator behavior and communication in free-living birds by employing simple experiments. Many of these projects have been designed to study questions associated with wildlife conservation and management and/or to better understand human impacts on wildlife. In 2008 I extended this UCLA protocol to include other vertebrates (mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes). UCLA supports this (admittedly) very flexible protocol that focuses on methods but not specific questions. Much of the proposed work will be conducted by undergraduate students at the RMBL (much of the UCLA work is conducted by students in my field and marine biology classes). Rather than citing specific references to justify a single question, I append relevant publications that illustrate the types of projects we have conducted below. At the RMBL I will design specific projects with the students? interests in mind. Projects will have to fit within procedures identified in this protocol. There are some that might not be focused on 'animals' per se and thus fall outside this protocol. For instance, there may be projects that broadcast sounds in the environment to study the 'habitat acoustics'. Such an experiment would not be targeted towards animals. I will provide close supervision of all work. The methods I describe below can be used to ask a variety of research questions and it is these methods that will likely be used by students conducting their projects. The experimental manipulations are relatively noninvasive. The animals are observed, but not handled, and are only minimally stressed or disturbed by a brief change in the environment. Similar sorts of experiments that I've done over the past two decades have caused limited disturbance.
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