Quantifying the landscape of fear: Collaborative camera trap networks to assess wildlife responses to activities of humans and free-ranging domestic species across Europe
▶Summary
Standardized, large-scale monitoring programs are critical to track progress toward the biodiversity and sustainable goals identified by several international initiatives, including the European Green Deal. Yet, these programs are hard to establish, often because of limited resources. International collaborations centered on data and knowledge sharing can fill this gap. The future fellow will gather and collate camera trap data collected across Europe in the past decade to quantify the impact on wildlife of the presence of humans and their domestic species in natural environments, at a fine temporal scale, and for the first time, across Europe. The mere presence of human and free-ranging dogs, cats, and livestock in natural environments might be detrimental to wildlife populations, with relatively unknown consequences on species’ persistence. This action aims at 1. quantifying the effects of human presence on mammals’ occupancy and activity; 2. assessing distribution and co-occurrence of free-ranging domestic animals and wildlife populations; 3. quantifying the effects of free-ranging domestic cats on urban and suburban mammal and bird communities. Along with leveraging publicly shared datasets, this action will build on and cement emerging European camera trap collaborations, and, thus, help establish the long-term, large-scale monitoring program that is paramount to tracking the status of terrestrial communities across Europe and informing European conservation policies. The future fellow will be hosted at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, a leading actor in the study of animal behavior and a strong promotor of European large-scale camera trap efforts. The future supervisor, Prof. Martin Wikelski, is a pioneer in leveraging international collaborations and technology to advance our understanding of animal decision-making processes across large scales. This action will greatly advance the fellow's expertise and establish her as an independent researcher.
Consortium (1)
Project Results (7)
Source: CORDIS, the EU research results database.