Unfortunate news! As much fun as we have been having here on St. Kitts, the same cannot be said for the island's local squirrel population. Before we arrived, the Department of Nature and Island Resources began a program involving the use of squirrels from St. Kitts' sister island, Nevis.The decision has been made to halt the project. . .for now. The attempt was certainly worthwhile; however, after 240 attempts at a reproductive event, there has not been a single success. Meanwhile, the squirrel population is still in decline.
Fortunately for St. Kitts, IRI is here and we already have some ideas about what might explain the many failed attempts at reproduction. Genes! The squirrel population on St. Kitts, as well as the population on Nevis, have natural variations in their phenotypes. We measured several of these traits in order to determine whether or not the two populations are statistically significantly different from one another. See the boxplot below, which depicts the results of some exploratory data analysis.
