A camera trap assessment of terrestrial vertebrates in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda

Abstract

We placed camera traps for a month at sixty locations in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park to determine the species composition and distribution of medium‐to‐large terrestrial vertebrates. A total of 15912 images were recorded from 1800 camera trap days. These provided a total of 625 and 338 camera events when filtered by hour and day, respectively. Twenty mammal species were recorded from 594 and 314 camera events by hour and day, respectively. Four bird species were recorded from 31 and 24 camera events by hour and day, respectively. The African golden cat Profelis aurata Temminck was recorded from 27 and nineteen camera events by hour and day, respectively. The black‐fronted duiker Cephalophus nigrifrons Gray was most frequently photographed with 179 and 65 camera events by hour and day, respectively. Analyses reveal two species possessed a significantly interior‐biased distribution. One species showed an edge‐biased pattern. Five species were detected to have significantly biased altitudinal distributions with higher elevations. Distance to park edge and elevation can significantly influence species distribution. The selective use of the park limits the area that each species utilizes, with implications for maximum population sizes and viability. Our observations provide a baseline for long‐term terrestrial vertebrate monitoring in Bwindi.

Developing an empirical approach to optimal camera-trap deployment at mammal resting sites: evidence from a longitudinal study of an otter Lutra lutra holt

“…The development of remote trail cameras, or camera-traps 38 opened new avenues of study and the twenty-first century marked a rapid proliferation in their use 39 in ecological research . Camera-trap technology has been applied to 40 biodiversity monitoring (Mugerwa et al, 2013;Tobler et al, 2015), estimating population size 41 Tobler et al, 2015) and behavioural observation (Brzeziński,Rodak & 42 Zalewski, 2014; Huang et al, 2014). There are, however, acknowledged potential sources of bias in 43 camera trap studies including disturbance, detectability, sampling design and trapping effort which 44 may affect the use of camera-traps as a research tool (Sollmann & Kelly, 2013;Gužvica et al, 2014).…”

Local temperature and ecological similarity drive distributional dynamics of tropical mammals worldwide

“…In addition, shared habitat preferences between ecologically similar species may have driven local colonization–extinction dynamics rather than species interactions. Lastly, we did not find an effect of forest cover change, likely because camera traps were located within protected areas, but other forms of anthropogenic disturbance at TEAM sites, such as edge effects and hunting, may have affected mammal populations (Hegerl et al, ; Mugerwa, Sheil, Ssekiranda, Heist, & Ezuma, ).…”

Spatial distribution of display sites of Grey Peacock-pheasant in relation to micro-habitat and predators during the breeding season

“…Photographs that were not clear enough to permit identification to species level were excluded from our analysis. Photographs had to be taken more than 1 h apart to be considered independent events, so as to avoid double counting of individual animals lingering in front of the camera (Mugerwa et al 2012). We used the camera trapping rate as an index of abundance.…”