College

College of Sciences

Department

Biological Sciences

Graduate Level

Doctoral

Graduate Program/Concentration

Ecological Sciences

Publication Date

2023

DOI

10.25883/q07q-f783

Abstract

Wildlife trail cameras, or “camera traps”, have become an effective tool in ecological research and conservation management across a variety of ecosystems to monitor a wide range of taxa. Camera trapping allows for extended survey time in traditionally hard-to-survey environments and has greatly increased our ability to detect cryptic species. One question ecologists commonly face is how much sampling effort is required to accurately estimate community composition. Despite the abundant literature that uses camera trapping techniques, few studies have occurred in coastal saltmarsh ecosystems. These ecosystems are being lost at a rapid rate from land conversion, pollution, and other anthropogenic stressors, and there is a critical need to better understand the role of coastal ecosystems as wildlife habitats across the globe. Here we analyzed camera trap data from 10 local coastal study plots in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Cameras collected data two weeks a month from May 2022 to Jan 2023, 24 hours per day, taking one photo per minute throughout their deployments. A total of 2.5 million photographs were taken over the study period. Photos were examined for all bird and mammal activity, identifying animals to the species level. Across all sites, we observed 25 different species ranging from migratory shorebirds (e.g., Spotted Sandpiper) to large mammals (e.g., White-tailed Deer). We used a rarefaction analysis to evaluate the accumulated number of detected species across days deployed. Our results demonstrate that the optimum sampling effort needed to achieve 90% detection is 39.6 camera-days (95% Confidence Intervals from 6 to 73) across all sites. Our findings suggest that camera traps are an effective technique in coastal environments when targeting medium to larger-sized terrestrial vertebrates such as wading birds and mammals. These results have broader implications for coastal restoration monitoring and have the potential to inform project monitoring methodology and design.

Keywords

Biodiversity, Ecology, Coastal, Salt marsh, Avian

Disciplines

Biodiversity | Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

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Hitting the Sweet Spot: Optimizing Camera Trapping Effort for Estimating Biodiversity in Coastal Environments


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