Does having a buddy Pokemon affect spawn rates?

I recently set my Pokemon buddy to a Vaporeon. On my latest walk, I ended up encountering four Eevees, which is a significant increase over my zero-Eevees average while walking through the same neighbourhood.

I know that walking x kilometres will give me candy, but this left me wondering if having a Pokemon buddy will also affect the spawn rates of that Pokemon nearby. Of course, it could also just be the RNG feeling unusually generous. And, RNGs being what they are, I really have no way to tell the difference without a hell of a lot of extra walking.

Or it could just be global changes of spawn rates for everyone corresponding with the latest patches, and my buddy Pokemon has nothing to do with it whatsoever.

Searching online, the best I could find was this thread on Silph Road, which is mostly anecdotal reports and speculation without a whole lot of hard data.

So I figured I'd ask here: Does having a buddy Pokemon affect the local spawn rates of that Pokemon? I'm not particularly interested in individual anecdotes so much as statistically significant data, either for or against.

Solution 1:

No. Spawn rates are not related to individuals. They will occur regardless of level or buddy Pokémon. There is no way to alter this behavior. Spawns will occur independently from your buddy Pokémon.