I'm a conservation biologist and ecologist interested in a broad-range of topics, including land-use change, habitat fragmentation, biodiversity monitoring and practically anything involving camera-trapping and-or mammals. I've spent a lot of my time trying to understand how species and communities are affected by human-impacts, in particular in the tropics. Two examples of this are: 1) predicting the number of "living dead" species hanging on in Amazonia, and 2) looking at what patterns of beta-diversity tell us about how we should design conservation set-aside. I've spent many years in the field, in Amazonia, Central Africa and Central/Southeast Asia, and am passionate about building scientific capacity wherever I work.
Most recently, I've been working on innovative methods to increase the usefulness of camera traps. On the one hand, this has involved developing new statistical methods and software to turn camera traps into fine-scale animal tracking devices. This potentially opens up a whole new window onto the lives of threatened mammals the world over.
On the other hand, it has involved working with WWF on best-practice guidelines for deploying camera traps, as well as developing helpful tools to enable conservation practitioners to rapidly deploy this really powerful technology. As part of this, I am attempting to gather experiences, frustrations and demands from camera-trappers, as well as highlight particularly successful or innovative examples of camera-trapping.
If you are a camera-trapper of any ilk (researcher, practitioner, manufacturer, hobbyist), I'd really like to hear from you!
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