An evaluation of camera traps for inventorying large- and medium-sized terrestrial rainforest mammals

Tobler and colleagues assessed how effectively camera traps inventory the terrestrial mammal community of a Peruvian rainforest, quantifying sampling effort needed to detect species and how detection varies with body size, abundance, and behavior. They found that camera traps reliably document medium and large terrestrial mammals but require substantial trap-nights to approach a complete species list, with rare and small species accumulating slowly. The study provided practical benchmarks for survey duration and effort in species-rich tropical settings, informing biodiversity inventories and rapid assessments. By characterizing detection biases and accumulation curves, it guided realistic expectations for camera-trap inventories. It is a frequently cited reference for designing community-level camera surveys in tropical forests where many felids and their prey occur.