Using global remote camera data of a “solitary” species complex to evaluate the drivers of group formation

The social system of animals involves a complex interplay between physiology, natural history, and the environment. Long relied upon discrete categorizations of “social” and “solitary” inhibit our capacity to understand species, and their interactions with the world around them. Here, we use a globally distributed camera trapping dataset to test the drivers of aggregating into groups in a species complex (martens and relatives, family Mustelidae, Order Carnivora) assumed to be obligately solitary. We use a simple quantification, the probability of being detected in a group, that was applied across our globally derived camera trap dataset. Using a series of binomial generalized mixed-effects models applied to a dataset of 16,483 independent detections across 17 countries on four continents we test explicit hypotheses about potential drivers of group formation. We observe a wide range of probabilities of being detected in groups within the “solitary” model system, with the probability of ..., We conducted a literature review of camera trap research in regions across the globe within the expected ranges of any member of the Martes complex during 2000 – 2020. We used search terms related to specific species names as well as generic terms such as “marten”, “camera trap”, “survey”, and “study”. We used these to create a database of correspondence authors from whom we requested data. In addition, we contacted experts, and reviewed the activities of major international non­‑governmental organizations. We conducted snowball sampling, obtaining additional datasets from colleagues recommended by previous contacts. Data gathered included longitude and latitude of camera stations, date, time, species names, number of individuals in each image, and other associated information (e.g. use of bait). Whilst camera deployment methods varied across the collated studies (see Appendix S1 for full details of each locality), the general method involved deploying camera traps either without bait o..., Anything that opens .csv files e.g. R, # Using global remote camera data of a “solitary” species complex to evaluate the drivers of group formation

Joshua P. Twining, Chris Sutherland, Andrzej Zalewski, Michael V. Cove, Johnny Birks, Oliver R. Wearn, Jessica Haysom, Anna Wereszczuk, Emiliano Manzo, Paola Bartolommei, Alessio Mortelliti, Bryn Evans, Brian D. Gerber, Thomas J. McGreevy Jr., Laken S. Ganoe, Juliana Masseloux, Amy E. Mayer, Izabela Wierzbowska, Jan Loch, Jocelyn Akins, Donovan Drummey, William McShea, Stephanie Manke, Lain Pardo, Andy Boyce, Sheng Li, Roslina Binti Ragai, Ronglarp Sukmasuang, Álvaro José Villafañe Trujillo, Carlos Lopez-Gonzlez, Nalleli Elvira Lara-Daz, Olivia Cosby, Cristian N. Waggershauser, Jack Bamber, Frances Stewart, Jason Fisher, Angela Fuller, Kelly Perkins, Roger A. Powell.

Author Information
A. Principal investigator contact information
Name: Joshua P. Twining
Institution: Cornell University
Address: DNRE, Cornell University, Fernow Hall, Ithaca, NY, USA, 14850
Email:

Date of col...