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Camera trap sampling design is never far from our minds in this lab
We've discussed "Random vs Game Trail-Based Camera Trap Placement Strategy for Monitoring Terrestrial Mammal Communities" by @jeremyjcusack et al. 2015: https://bit.ly/32xypg5
What are your thoughts?
We've discussed "Random vs Game Trail-Based Camera Trap Placement Strategy for Monitoring Terrestrial Mammal Communities" by @jeremyjcusack et al. 2015: https://bit.ly/32xypg5
What are your thoughts?
Camera placement targeting landscape features such as game trails, roads, water points and salt licks can increase the detection probability of focal species. But they violate a key principle of sampling theory that can impact inference: the random selection of sampling units.
The authors implemented a paired design in Ruaha National Park in Tanzania with camera placements on/off game trails w/i 50 m of each other. They compared richness, composition, and structure in observed terrestrial mammal communities.
Their big finding and take home message was “given adequate sampling effort (> 1400 camera trap nights), placement strategy is unlikely to affect inferences made at the community level.” 
Neither placement strategy recorded all 41 species detected overall. Composition patterns and structure were similar overall, although there were notable differences in community richness in the wet season and for lower levels of sampling effort.
@cole_burton wonders if 'the conclusions would be same elsewhere (hopefully!)'
@xprockox says 'it's an interesting epistemological take on camera-trapping, and a reminder of biases we face in both designing camera grids and actually placing cameras at randomly assigned points'
@xprockox says 'it's an interesting epistemological take on camera-trapping, and a reminder of biases we face in both designing camera grids and actually placing cameras at randomly assigned points'
