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2015 Archive
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Author(s): Simon R. Boycott
Presentation: poster
The Southern Idaho Ground Squirrel is an endemic species to the state of Idaho, and its known range is only 38 square miles within the state. Interestingly, the areas of localized abundance seem to typically be concentrated around human-altered landscapes such as golf courses and row crop or farmed fields. This species is currently endangered, as it continually faces threats from exotic grasses and weeds, habitat fragmentation, direct killing from shooting, and inadequacy of regulatory mechanisms to protect the species or its habitat, among other factors. The aim of this project is to determine whether this squirrel's abundance is indeed concentrated around human-altered landscapes, and how land use/land cover as a whole affects their distribution. Species distribution data will be overlayed on USGS land cover datasets for Idaho. GIS will be used to analyse spatial relationships between the occurrence of southern Idaho ground squirrels and land cover types.
The College of Idaho 2112 Cleveland Blvd Caldwell, ID 8360 USA 208-459-5011 800-2C-IDAHO