Time flies! My first set of camera and recorder deployments are ready to be picked up after 15 days. I am very excited to see the results. I will have a total of 30 sites (15 in old growth forest and 15 in regenerating forest), but I only have 15 camera traps and recorders as they are expensive. Therefore I split my sites into two rounds of deployment, with some from each forest type in each round to avoid any bias caused by weather or other conditions that impact one of the rounds. I will also account for these potential issues later in my analyses. As for this first round, we got some awesome images!
We have thousands of images and recordings now, and will continue to gather more still. It is lot logistically ideal to go through each photo or audio file by hand, so I will be using two AI software tools, both of which are free to the public! For photos, I will be using Wildlife Insights and for audio recordings I will use Arbimon. Both of these websites allow users to upload their data and use AI trained on previous data to identify animals. This saves an immense amount of time for researchers as well as allows data to easily be shared with other scientists. I am also using sites from a previous camera trapping expedition by a network of scientists with sites across the globe. I am hoping to visit and work in other sites in this network during my PhD! We also continue to see amazing plants, animals, and views everywhere we walk. 15 more days and our second round of results will be ready to collect.
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AuthorI am an ecology PhD student in the Beaudrot Lab at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Archives
November 2023
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