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East Bay Urban Ecology Lab

Class Projects

Students in woods putting up a camera trap

Designing a randomized experiment in urban forest biodiversity.

Ecology students used a grid system to randomly choose camera sites in the Preserve to compare biodiversity in areas closer and farther away from campus. They analyzed species diversity and conducted animal trace transects at the camera trap sites.
Skunk in woods at night

Nocturnal, Diurnal, or Corpuscular?

Environmental Biology students analyzed a month of photographs and categorized them by species. They then mapped the time of activity for each species to examine overlapping and partitioned niches and the way different animal guilds (such as insectivores, carnivores, and grazers) use the same area.
Bobcat on a log in the forest at night

Student Research

Bobcat behavior

Alexa Evans conducted research on the behavior of local bobcats in response to habitat fragmentation and found through literature research that females with kittens stay more to the interior of a habitat patch compared to bobcats in solo life stages that travel more broadly.
Alexa Evans conducted research on the behavior of local bobcats in response to habitat fragmentation and found through literature research that females with kittens stay more to the interior of a habitat patch compared to bobcats in solo life stages that travel more broadly.

Collaborations

Mountain Lion monitoring

Our camera data is collected and used by the Felidae Conservation Fund to monitor the Mountain Lion populations in the Bay Area.

Contact Dr. Kelly Decker for Collaboration Opportunities

Department of Biology
  • 25800 Carlos Bee Blvd
  • Hayward, CA 94542

Funding

Funding for this project came from a 22-23 CSU East Bay RSCA grant to K.L.M. Decker