Hi everyone,

I’m a PhD student in tropical ecology based in Brazil, and I’m currently planning a field pilot that will use cameras to monitor invertebrate (insect) activity at primate dung and carrion stations on the forest floor.

At this stage, I’m still evaluating whether a classic camera trap using a time-lapse/interval mode, a fixed continuous recording system of some kind, or a simple DIY setup is the best option. I’m intentionally keeping the design open until I understand what actually works under field conditions.

My data needs are interaction-based rather than taxonomic. I do not need species-level identification, but I do need sufficient image quality to:

• assign interacting fauna to functional guilds (e.g. flies, beetles, ants, wasps)
• quantify time to first interaction, interaction duration, and turnover over time

Cameras will be deployed day and night (24 hr minimum), unattended, in a humid tropical forest. Stations are fixed, so cameras can be optimized for a known working distance and field of view.

I’m hoping to get very concrete recommendations from people who have worked on similar problems, including:

• Specific camera trap models that perform reasonably well for close-range insect monitoring (especially using time-lapse)
• Fixed-camera or alternative systems that have worked better than standard trail cams
• Minimum resolution or lens characteristics that are sufficient for guild-level classification
• Night imaging approaches (IR vs visible light) that still allow insects to be distinguished, but do not alter behaviors
• Low-cost or DIY builds (e.g. action cams, Raspberry Pi systems, modified setups) that have survived real field deployments

Cost and equipment availability in Brazil are real constraints, so recommendations that are either commercially accessible here or realistically buildable are especially helpful.

If you’ve used something that met similar objectives, I’d really appreciate knowing exactly what you used, what worked, and what didn’t. Thanks very much.

@Max_Sitt