SNAPSHOT USA 2020: A second coordinated national camera trap survey of the United States during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

Managing wildlife populations in the face of global change requires regular data on the abundance and distribution of wild animals, but acquiring these over appropriate spatial scales in a sustainable way has proven challenging. Here we present the data from Snapshot USA 2020, a second annual national mammal survey of the USA. This project involved 152 scientists setting camera traps in a standardized protocol at 1485 locations across 103 arrays in 43 states for a total of 52,710 trap‐nights of survey effort. Most (58) of these arrays were also sampled during the same months (September and October) in 2019, providing a direct comparison of animal populations in 2 years that includes data from both during and before the COVID‐19 pandemic. All data were managed by the eMammal system, with all species identifications checked by at least two reviewers. In total, we recorded 117,415 detections of 78 species of wild mammals, 9236 detections of at least 43 species of birds, 15,851 detections of six domestic animals and 23,825 detections of humans or their vehicles. Spatial differences across arrays explained more variation in the relative abundance than temporal variation across years for all 38 species modeled, although there are examples of significant site‐level differences among years for many species. Temporal results show how species allocate their time and can be used to study species interactions, including between humans and wildlife. These data provide a snapshot of the mammal community of the USA for 2020 and will be useful for exploring the drivers of spatial and temporal changes in relative abundance and distribution, and the impacts of species interactions on daily activity patterns. There are no copyright restrictions, and please cite this paper when using these data, or a subset of these data, for publication.

Mammal responses to global changes in human activity vary by trophic group and landscape

“…This context-dependency should be a focus of further research, including expanded assessment of contexts and species under-represented in our sample, such as those in tropical regions subjected to different pressures during the pandemic 36 . Many geographic and taxonomic gaps in global biodiversity monitoring remain and must be filled by cost-effective networks that gather reliable evidence across several scales; standardized camera-trap programmes and infrastructure are helping to do so 37 , 38 . As the cumulative effects of the human enterprise put pressure on ecosystems worldwide 39 , bending the curve of biodiversity loss will require context-specific knowledge on ecological responses to human actions that can guide locally appropriate and globally effective conservation solutions.…”

White‐tailed deer detection rates increase when coyotes are present

“…Coyotes, along with American black bears ( Ursus americanus ) and bobcats ( Lynx rufus ), are the primary natural predators of white‐tailed deer in this region. The first dataset consisted of 129 camera traps deployed during 2019–2021 in wildlife openings within the Monongahela National Forest (MNF) in West Virginia; the second dataset consisted of 138 camera traps deployed during 2022 on private landowner properties in three study sites across five counties of West Virginia; and the third dataset consisted of 52 camera traps deployed in 2020 on public forested lands at one study site in West Virginia and at two study sites in Pennsylvania as part of Snapshot USA 2020, a coordinated camera trap survey across the USA (Kays et al., 2022 ). Altogether, our seven study sites span multiple physiographic provinces and several different forest types that are representative of Central Appalachia.…”

“…For the camera traps deployed as part of Snapshot USA 2020, participating scientists followed standardized protocols described in Kays et al. ( 2022 ). Between August 31 and November 5, 2020, camera traps were deployed for 2–43 days (mean: 22.3 days) at a total of 33 locations in the West Virginia University Research Forest, for 28–56 days (mean: 49.3 days) at a total of 12 locations in Rothrock State Forest, and for 2–50 days (mean: 29.4 days) at a total of seven locations in Gettysburg National Military Park.…”

Understanding Organisms Using Ecological Observatory Networks

“…Such an effort would in some ways be similar to existing projects such as Snapshot USA ( Cove et al. 2021 ; Kays et al. 2022 ), but an explicit difference would be the availability of tremendous amounts of associated abiotic and biotic data collected by NEON.…”