Recommended guiding principles for reporting on camera trapping research

Meek and colleagues addressed the inconsistency in how camera-trap studies report their methods, which hampers comparison, replication, and meta-analysis. They proposed a standardized set of metadata and methodological details that every study should disclose, including camera make and settings, station spacing, trigger and delay configuration, survey effort in trap-nights, deployment dates, and habitat context. Establishing these reporting norms helps ensure that results are interpretable and that datasets can be combined across studies. The paper functioned as a community standard, improving transparency and rigor in a fast-growing field. It is widely cited as the reference for minimum reporting requirements and is routinely invoked in methods sections of camera-trap papers to justify documentation practices.