MASTIF home

led by Roland Kays

The abundances of large consumer activity is being monitored with camera traps.  NEON biodiversity sampling covers many species groups, but omits the larger vertebrates.

We are using camera traps to survey each of the NEON sites where masting is monitored to obtain a snapshot of the community of medium and large-sized mammals.  We are setting 49 cameras <330m apart in a grid across each NEON study area (~25km2). Each camera grid is run for one month during the early growing season of each site. Images are processed with the eMammal system and data is archived at the Smithsonian.  The results will be a standardized account of the relative abundance of the large and medium sized terrestrial birds and mammals.

Here is a progress report.