The untapped potential of camera traps for farmland biodiversity monitoring: current practice and outstanding agroecological questions

Abstract

Agroecosystems are experiencing a biodiversity crisis. Biodiversity monitoring is needed to inform conservation, but existing monitoring schemes lack standardisation and are biased towards birds, insects and plants. Automated monitoring techniques offer a promising solution, but while passive acoustic monitoring and remote sensing are increasingly used, the potential of camera traps (CTs) in farmland remains underexplored. We reviewed CT publications from the last 30 years and found only 59 articles that sampled farmland habitats in Europe. The main research topics addressed management or (avian) conservation issues, such as monitoring wildlife‐livestock interactions, nest predation, and the use of feeders and water troughs. Fewer studies employed landscape‐wide approaches to investigate species' habitat use or activity patterns over large agricultural areas. We discuss existing barriers to a more widespread use of CTs in farmland and suggest strategies to overcome them: boxed CTs tailored for small mammals, reptiles and amphibians, perch‐mounted CTs for raptor monitoring and time‐lapse imagery can help in overcoming the technical challenges of monitoring (small) elusive species in open habitats where misfires and missed detections are more frequent. Such approaches would also expand the taxonomic coverage of farmland monitoring schemes towards under‐surveyed species and species groups. Moreover, the engagement of farmers in CT‐based biodiversity monitoring programmes and advances in computer vision for image classification provide opportunities for low‐cost, broad‐scale and automated monitoring schemes. Research priorities that could be tackled through such CT applications include basic science topics such as unravelling animal space use in agricultural landscapes, and how this is influenced by varying agricultural practices. Management‐related research priorities relate to crop damage and livestock predation by wildlife, disease transmission between wildlife and livestock, effects of agrochemicals on wildlife, and the monitoring and assessment of conservation measures. Altogether, CTs hold great, yet unexplored, potential to advance agroecological research.