Common mammal species inventory utilizing camera trapping in the forests of Kouilou Département, Republic of Congo

A snapshot camera trap assessment of mammals in Congo’s Massif du Chaillu with a noteworthy record of grey‐necked rockfowl Picathartes oreas

“…The difference may be related to a combination of factors including deployment period, equipment and human influence close to the Mayoko village. The detection rate is, however, lower than that achieved by Orban et al, (2018) during 2012 (May – July, 10 cameras, 595 TN) for a study area in the Kouilou department, 220 km south west of our study area, along the Conkouati Douli National Park, in the forest / savannah mosaic landscape of the coastal plain before the Mayombe mountain range (Van Rooyen et al, 2016) where 21 mammal species were identified with a detection rate of 35.6 detections per 100 TN. The higher detection rate in the Kouilou study may be ascribed to the greater habitat diversity sampled (savannah and forest), with an inherently broader species spectrum, a result also noted by Hedwig et al (2018) in Bateké Plateau National Park in nearby Gabon (31 species, 40 Cameras, 5,902 TN, 96.8 detections per 100 TN).…”

“…Animals (or groups thereof), impossible to individually distinguish, captured within 30 minutes of each other at a single station were recorded as a single detection. After 30 minutes, subsequent triggers were considered separate events (Bruce et al, 2018; Meek et al, 2014; Orban et al, 2018).…”

“…Multidisciplinary surveys were deployed to evaluate the like for like or better nature (IFC PS6, 2012) of flora and fauna in a proposed offset area. The study included the deployment of camera trap arrays to survey common, medium to large mammals, (Ancrenaz et al, 2012; Meek et al, 2014; Mugerwa et al, 2013; Orban et al, 2018). The objective of this effort is to document extant mammalian fauna and highlight a noteworthy avifaunal ‘bycatch’ detection.…”

Estimates of Species Richness and Composition Depend on Detection Method in Assemblages of Terrestrial Mammals

“…Whereas mammal communities could be better characterised by the joint deployment of multiple detection methods, this approach is also expensive and time-consuming, limiting the size of the area that can be simultaneously covered. As sampling time should be minimised in rapid, large-scale mammal surveys, it is convenient to identify and use a single efficient method wherever possible [ 14 , 32 ]. Probably not every method has the potential for a high efficiency given the constraints of rapid surveys.…”

“…In this paper, we explore the implications of between-method differences in efficiency and consistency for the characterisation of mammal communities, and provide a novel framework for evaluating method performance, optimising the estimation of simple community-level indices for rapid regional mammal inventories. Firstly, we evaluate the efficiency of four widely used field detection methods, namely camera traps, scent stations, scat surveys, and track surveys [ 32 , 33 , 34 ]. We compare how much species composition and species richness estimated with each detection method approaches corresponding values derived from a multi-method approach, i.e., the joint application of the four methods.…”