7:00 a.m. A squirrel! I can’t believe I just saw a squirrel from the house window. What luck, I even managed to take a video of it!
Well, my first awakening at Tall Timbers is off to the best possible start, with a gorgeous view and a squirrel wandering outside my window. It’s not every day you get to see a squirrel!
After a day at Tall Timbers, I soon realized that you can see squirrels all the time. Gray squirrels, fox squirrels, and even a few flying squirrels!
Anna Maria, a visiting researcher from Italy, during a prescribed fire.
My name is Anna, and I am from Italy. I was born and raised in Sardinia, a beautiful island in the Mediterranean Sea. We don’t have squirrels in Sardinia!
I am attending the University of Sassari to obtain a Master’s in Wildlife Conservation and Management. Thanks to Professor Carolina Baruzzi from the University of Florida and Tall Timbers’ Biological Monitoring Coordinator Kim Sash, I have the wonderful opportunity to do research for my thesis at Tall Timbers.
My research involves using camera traps to monitor gopher tortoise burrows. I currently have 45 in operation at Tall Timbers and Livingston Place and two other private properties in the Red Hills region. Camera traps are a monitoring tool that can provide much information on elusive species without disturbing wildlife.
The camera traps we use are low-glare, 20-megapixel infrared trail cams with an activation speed of 0.3 seconds. I check each camera trap weekly to change its memory card, check that vegetation is not obstructing the view, clean the lens, and change batteries when necessary. The photos from each memory card are saved and copied to online software, making data analysis easier and allowing me to use the data for my thesis, even when I return to Italy.
Hundreds of species utilize the gopher tortoise burrows and the apron of soil at their entrance.
Data collected will be used to study gopher tortoise commensal species. Commensalism is a long-term interaction in which one species gains benefits while the other species —the gopher tortoise in this case— is neither benefited nor harmed. I will assess whether variations in the commensal species present at each burrow are based on the health status of the tortoise inhabiting the burrow.
The health status of each tortoise at the burrows with camera traps is being evaluated through a multi-year study by Tall Timbers. The study assesses diseases that could contribute to tortoise population decline, an important consideration as the Red Hills region currently supports the largest gopher tortoise population on private lands.
Biodiversity near the dirt apron of gopher tortoise burrows is impressive. We have detected about fifty species, including reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and birds, but we expect to see many more over the coming months. Previous studies have documented over 250 species using gopher tortoise burrows!
This research will help us better understand if the health status of gopher tortoises impacts the numerous other wildlife species that benefit from the burrows of this important ecosystem engineer.
