Decision-Making in a Complex Social Environment: Developing Methodological Approaches Using Innovative Technologies

In this project, I will use automated tracking technology and machine learning to test how individual investments and decision-making are influenced by the social environment. To achieve this, I will develop a method for automated detection of decision-making in a wild population of squirrels, and combine this with technological methods that allow me to construct social networks (quantifying social relationships) and spatial networks (documenting home ranges). Study system I will conduct my project on the long-term field site of the eastern grey squirrels at the University of Exeter campus (established in 2005 by my proposed primary supervisor, Dr Lisa Leaver). Eastern grey squirrels are scatter-cachers relying on cached food for considerable portions of the year[2]. Thus, caching decisions are of significant importance for individual survival. Squirrels are often described as asocial but both sexes nest communally and females show natal philopatry and have overlapping home ranges[12]. Individuals in the campus population are habituated to humans and routinely trapped and marked with PIT tags, such that individuals are monitored across multiple years. This trapping protocol will allow me to fit GPS collars and accelerometers with relative ease.