Mammal Species Inventory - Kruger National Park: Report 1 April 2017 to September 2019

SnapshotSafari is a transnational program aiming at providing a greater knowledge about mammal populations accross southern Africa. Thanks to standardized camera traps (CTs) grid, deployed in various locations reflecting a diversity of conservation states (from protected areas to highly transformed areas), SnapshotSafari aims at describing mammal population abundances, diversities and spatial occurrences. The data provided will benefit Research, in fields as broad as Genetics, Ecology or conservation Biology, as well by providing to conservation planning a comprehensive synthesis of which species can be found in their location, with which abundance...etc. The project is coordinated in South Africa by Nelson by Mandela University’s Wildlife Ecology Lab. The images collected by the CTs (as much as thousands per site) are sent to the United States (University of Minnesota) to be processed via a participative science plateform (Zooniverse) and machine learning (a popular IT field that allows automatized recognition of elements in an image, for instance antelopes in a landscape photo).SnapshotSafari是一项跨国研究项目，旨在深化对南部非洲各地哺乳动物种群的认知。项目通过布设标准化红外触发相机（camera traps, CT）网格，覆盖各类兼具不同保护状态的区域——从严格保护区到高度开发区域，以期全面刻画哺乳动物种群的丰度、多样性与空间分布格局。本项目产出的数据将为遗传学、生态学、保护生物学等多个研究领域提供重要支撑，同时也可为保护规划工作提供全面的综合信息，清晰呈现各监测区域内的物种类群及其种群丰度等相关内容。该项目在南非由纳尔逊·曼德拉大学野生动物生态学实验室牵头协调。每个监测点位由红外触发相机（CT）采集的图像数量可达数千张，这些图像会被送往美国明尼苏达大学，通过公众科学平台Zooniverse与机器学习（machine learning）技术进行处理。机器学习作为一类可实现图像元素自动化识别的热门信息技术领域，可完成诸如识别景观照片中羚羊类群等任务。