Abstract
The black-tailed dusky antechinus (Antechinus arktos) is an endangered, small carnivorous marsupial endemic to Australia, which occurs at low population density along with abundant sympatric populations of other small mammals: Antechinus stuartii, Rattus fuscipes and Melomys cervinipes. Using A. arktos as a model species, we aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of infrared digital camera traps for detecting and differentiating small mammals and to comment on the broad applicability of this methodology. We also sought to understand how the detection probabilities of our target species varied over time and characterize their activity patterns. We installed 11 infrared cameras at one of only three known sites where A. arktos occurs for five consecutive deployments. Cameras were fixed to wooden stakes and oriented vertically, 35 cm above ground, directly facing bait containers. Using this method, we successfully recorded and identified individuals from all four species of small mammal known previously in the area from live trapping, including A. arktos. This validates the effectiveness of the infrared camera type and orientation for small mammal studies. Periods of activity for all species were highly coincident, showing a strong peak in activity during the same two-hour period immediately following sunset. A. arktos, A. stuartii and M. cervinipes also displayed a strong negative linear relationship between detection probability and days since deployment. This is an important finding for camera trapping generally, indicating that routine camera deployment lengths (of one-to-two weeks) between baiting events may be too long when targeting some small mammals.
Highlights
Earth is currently experiencing biodiversity losses of a magnitude described by many as constituting a sixth mass extinction [1, 2]
R. fuscipes was detected most frequently, constituting 56% of all mammal observations, with trap success ranging from 77–98% between deployments
Most numerous was M. cervinipes (15.2% of all observations; trap success ranging from 33–65%), A. stuartii (13.2% of all observations; trap success ranging from 15–59%), I. macrourus (3.9% of all observations; trap success ranging from 7–35%) and A. arktos (2.1% of all observations; trap success ranging from 3–21%)
Summary
Earth is currently experiencing biodiversity losses of a magnitude described by many as constituting a sixth mass extinction [1, 2]. Field surveys involving the capture of individuals by live traps is a common method employed by wildlife researchers to establish the occurrence of small terrestrial mammal species and to monitor populations (e.g., their abundance, survival and recruitment) over time [3, 4]. These direct sampling methods provide immediate and generally unambiguous species identifications and enable additional information to be collected from individuals, such as genetic material and their sex, age, body mass and condition [5]. Camera traps may be seen and / or heard by animals to some degree [9, 10], they still provide an opportunity to detect and monitor rare and / or trap-shy species that may otherwise be missed or under-detected by direct census methods [11, 12], as well as collect potentially valuable information about behaviour and activity [13, 14]
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