ForestGEO has its own protocol to survey terrestrial mammals and birds within and around forest dynamics plot. Camera traps are deployed at fixed points in a grid of 49-50 points across 1 km² of forest. Trap density is thus one trap per 2 ha, and trap interspacing is 140-145 m. The grid may be square or rectangular, but should be centered on the FDP. The grid is laid out in such a way that it includes the entire FDP plus some forest buffer around it. The survey can be repeated to uncover trends. Most data are in Wildlife Insights. The data can be found by filtering on “ForestGEO”. The ForestGEO camera trapping protocol is available here.
The ForestGEO protocol is an adaptation of the protocol of the discontinued Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring Network (TEAM Network, 2011). This protocol annually deploys a camera trap during at least one month at each of 60-90 points at a density of 1 camera every 2 km to monitor the status of species and changes in the community. The TEAM protocol was implemented at four ForestGEO sites (Barro Colorado Island, Yasuni, Korup and Pasoh). Photographs used to be processed with an application called DeskTEAM (Fegraus et al., 2011), nowadays in Wildlife Insights. The data can be found by filtering on “TEAM”. The TEAM protocol is available here.
Vertebrate monitoring data can be used to build annual occupancy and spatial occurrence models through sites.
Click here to access ForestGEO at Wildlife Insight.
