Wildlife camera trap data identifies key information for assessing conservation priorities among mammals

What determines where and how successfully a population of animals live? Pepperwood’s Senior Conservation Scientist Morgan Gray, PhD, worked with scientists from around the United States analyzing data from 25 mammal species recorded by camera traps at 6,645 locations across the conterminous United States in a joint modeling framework to estimate relative abundance of each species. Relative abundance is simply a measure of how common or rare a species is compared to other species in a specific location or community. In this study of wildlife communities across the US, they found climate to be the key factor in their distribution. Interestingly, human activity had less impact on where animals live than was expected. The maps of these animal communities can help us predict how climate change might affect wildlife in the future, especially since extinction rates have risen drastically in the last 500 years in what scientists call, the sixth mass extinction.

This paper originated as part of the Snapshot USA national mammal survey, a large scientific collaboration to sample mammals across the country with camera traps each year.

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Publication found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ddi.13900