Mentors: Laura Abondano Franco, Ph.D., Kelsey Ellis, Ph.D.

While tropical rainforests are some of the most biodiverse places on the planet, studying their biodiversity can be challenging due to difficult terrain and the behaviors of elusive or cryptic species. One popular solution to dealing with such challenges is to use passive monitoring methods such as camera traps. Between June and July of 2024, we placed camera traps both at the ground level and in the canopy to investigate the presence of animal species, their temporal activity patterns, and potential interspecies interactions at Soqtapata, a developing research site in the montane Andean-Amazon region of Peru. The research station is working to complete inventories of the flora and fauna of the site, but researchers have had difficulty encountering rare species through direct observations alone due to the strenuous terrain. From a total of 3,288 hours of active monitoring across 9 locations at the field site, we recorded 55 unique visits (spaced at least 30 mins apart). Of these visits, 69% occurred between dusk and dawn, with the highest frequency of occurrence between 7pm and 4am. Most observations were of rodents (order Rodentia, 42%) or birds (class Aves, 38%), followed by armadillos (order Cingulata, 13%). The remaining 7% of observations included peccaries, bats, and carnivores, including the elusive tigrillo (Leopardus trigrinus). We also confirmed the presence of the prehensile-tailed porcupine (Coendou prehensilis), a species that had been observed by locals yet not documented photographically, stressing the importance of arboreal camera traps for documenting canopy-dwelling species. The continued use of passive monitoring methods at Soqtapata will be key in developing a more complete inventory of the present species, which will be valuable when developing effective conservation strategies for this highly biodiverse region.

Explore the Project