Which bait should I use? Insights from a camera trap study in a highly diverse cerrado forest
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Which bait should I use? Insights from a camera trap study in a highly diverse cerrado forest Esther Sebastián-González 1 & Zebensui Morales-Reyes 1 & Lara Naves-Alegre 1 & Carlos Javier Durá Alemañ 1,2 Leilda Gonçalves Lima 3 & Lourival Machado Lima 3 & José Antonio Sánchez-Zapata 1
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Received: 19 May 2020 / Revised: 26 August 2020 / Accepted: 10 November 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Identifying the most appropriate bait for a camera trap study is an important step in sampling design, as some baits may perform better than others in attracting different animal species. In this study, we compare the vertebrate communities detected using five different widely used baits (i.e., fruit, sardines, valerian extract, a mix of sweet fruits and peanut butter, and a combination of valerian extract and sardines). We assess their performance and characterize the species best detected by each bait in the diverse Cerrado biome. We identified a total of 46 species of vertebrates: 15 mammals, 4 reptiles, and 27 birds. The baits differed in their estimates of community composition, richness, and abundance. In general, valerian extract detected fewer individuals and species than any of the other baits. Fruits detected the largest number of bird species. Sardines detected the largest number of species overall and were the best bait for felines and reptiles. Baits of an animal origin performed similarly to those of a plant origin. Our study shows that baits should be selected based on the objective of the study. Keywords Attractant . Fruit . Lure . Peanut butter . Valerian extract
Introduction Camera traps are used in a wide range of zoology, ecology, and conservation biology studies (Cutler and Swann 1999; Rovero and Zimmermann 2016). They have been used to estimate animal population size (Sarmento et al. 2009; González-Esteban et al. 2004), density (du Preez et al. 2014; Bessone et al. 2020), population trends (Ahumada et al. 2013), and individual home ranges (Gil-Sánchez et al. 2011). They have also been extensively used to characterize entire assemblages, such as mesocarnivores (Ferreras et al. 2017) or scavengers (Sebastián-González et al. 2019), as well as to identify seed dispersal and plant-pollinator interactions (Donatti et al. 2011; Steen 2016) and study animal behavior (Caravaggi et al. * Esther Sebastián-González [email protected] 1
Departamento de Biología Aplicada, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Elche, Spain
2
Área de Formación e Investigación del Centro Internacional de Estudios de Derecho Ambiental (CIEDA-CIEMAT), Soria, Spain
3
Paradise of Macaws and Wolf Camp, São Goncalo do Gurgueia, Piauí, Brazil
2017). Camera traps are non-invasive and more cost-effective than other methods. They have also declined in cost in the last few decades, resulting in a large increase in their use (McCallum 2013). The methodological details of this technique must be carefully considered, depending on the study objectives and species (Hamel et al. 2013). Although un-ba
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