Amazon Canopy Camera Trap

Camera trap technology has taken the discovery of the biodiversity of arboreal species to new heights. Although arboreal camera traps are still generally uncommon, they are becoming more accessible due to improved climbing techniques, sampling designs, and camera technology. This technology is providing new insight into life and diversity in the tropical forest canopy which is enabling scientists to discover tropical forest species from a new angle. Arboreal species have primarily been studied from land-based survey techniques such as distance sampling, total counts and focal/ scan sampling (Whitworth et al., 2016). However, land-based surveys can develop problems when collecting data such as restricted views due to vegetation, the invasive nature of land-based surveys and the collection of minimal data over the same period. Although the use of camera traps in studies of wildlife surveys is now widespread, their use for assessing the abundance of arboreal mammals is still rare. For most primates that never come to the ground, only cameras placed in the canopy can assess their population status locally. From 2018 to 2019 we monitored the canopy of trees of Reserva Florestal Adolpho Ducke in Manaus, Brazil with 12 camera traps placed at ~25 m in height in the canopy. We were able to record all primate species except for the locally rare spider monkey.