A Simple Approach to Collecting Useful Wildlife Data Using Remote Camera-Traps in Undergraduate Biology Courses

Remote camera-traps are commonly used to estimate the abundance, diversity, behavior and habitat use of wildlife in an inexpensive and nonintrusive manner. Because of the increasing use of remote-cameras in wildlife studies, students interested in wildlife biology should be exposed to the use of remote-cameras early in their academic careers. Although there is a rich literature on the use of remote-cameras in wildlife studies, few have provided meaningful examples within an academic course setting. Due to the time constraint of a typical semester, many laboratory exercises generate data sufficient for the activity but lack inference to actual wildlife populations. This article describes a series of laboratory exercises that are both useful to student learning and provide relevant biological data. Students use remote-cameras to measure diversity, diel behavior (i.e. over a 24-hour period) and the relative abundance of mammals in a biological corridor. Other abundance methods such as mark-recapture or random encounter models that require marked individuals and/or extensive temporal and spatial methodology are often not practical in a course framework. The approach described in this article teaches students about research design and local wildlife abundance and behavior, using simple methodologies employed over a three-lab period.