Abstract
Endangered species recovery requires knowledge of species abundance, distribution, habitat preferences, and threats. Endangered beach mouse populations (Peromyscus polionotus subspp.) occur on barrier islands in Florida and Alabama. Camera traps may supplement current methods and strengthen inferences of animal activity. Between November 2020-February 2022, we conducted 140 camera surveys across 86 track tubes on Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. We used generalized linear models to explore the relationships between beach mouse detections and environmental factors. We detected beach mice on 6,397 occasions across all tubes. Detections ranged from 0 to 147 observations/survey. Our top model suggested that beach mouse detection was related to cover type with positive associations with grassland and dune compared to scrub. Detections further varied depending on islands, were negatively associated with predator detections, and increased in winter months. Our results suggest that cameras can supplement inference about vegetation associations at broader scales to complement monthly track tube surveys since detection counts are more informative than presence/absence data alone. Given that all tubes exhibited at least one observation, the camera trap network may provide a less frequent and more robust survey method relative to monthly track tube surveys. Adopting such a multifaceted approach may reduce effort and strengthen inference to inform recovery objectives and adaptive management range-wide for all listed beach mouse subspecies.
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Data availability
Data and R scripts are stored with study authors and available upon request as .csv and .txt files. Given that sites are located on restricted lands operated by the Department of Defense and involve endangered species, original camera trap images are stored on external hard drives and can be available to qualified researchers upon reasonable requests.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff that monitored these populations of beach mice and maintained the tracking tube grid over the many years of this study. Thanks to Ashley Warren with U.S. National Park Service for assistance with field sampling.
Funding
This research and publication were funded by a cooperative agreement between the Florida Natural Areas Inventory and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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K. Hooker: Formal Analysis, Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Data curation, Writing-original & review. M. Cove: Formal Analysis, Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Data curation, Writing-original & review. E. C. Watersmith: Data curation, Methodology, Writing- review. A. Jenkins: Data collection, Conceptualization, Methodology, I. Hodges: Data collection, Methodology, D. Seay: Data collection, Methodology, M. Kaeser: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Writing- review & editing.
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Communicated by: Karol Zub.
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Hooker, K.R., Cove, M.V., Watersmith, E.C. et al. Camera traps strengthen inference about endangered beach mouse activity. Mamm Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-024-00752-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-024-00752-3