Say Cheese Using Camera Traps to Explore Urban Park Small Mammal Composition and Human Density Relationships

Abstract

Record ID: 240

Type: Poster Presentation (in-person)

Advisor: Steve Matter

Abstract: Inherent to the design of any successful experiment are the ethical obligations of researchers. Designing experiments from an ethical perspective can also steer toward compliance to ever-changing social and legal expectations. Studies comparing the effectiveness of camera-trapping vs. live-trapping in a variety of habitats yields promising results. By utilizing this non-intrusive approach, we attempted to explore further relationships between small mammals and urban environments. Bearing in mind the importance of biodiversity to ever-diminishing urban greenspace, we investigated six urban parks with the goals of comparing rodent species abundance and diversity across additional human-related factors. By exploring the effect of human population density on overall small mammal composition we tested our prediction that small mammal species diversity negatively correlated with human population density. Cameras were deployed in six urban parks throughout Cincinnati with varying human density levels according to census data to determine the species abundance and diversity of existing small mammals. We compared our results to an extracted local species pool and explored the effects on increasing human density in hopes to extract existing patterns between small mammal species composition and human density.