Trialling camera traps to determine occupancy and breeding in burrowing seabirds

Burrowing seabirds are important in ecological and conservation terms. Many populations flux due to both negative positive anthropogenic impacts, but their ecology makes measuring changes difficult. Reliably recording key metrics, the proportion of burrows with breeding pairs success attempts requires burrow-level information on occupancy. We investigated use camera traps positioned at burrow entrances for determining number a sample inform population estimates, success. The performance two cameras we tested differed markedly, Spypoint Force 10 trail prone malfunction while Reconyx HC600 Hyperfire performed well. Nevertheless, yielded season-long activity patterns individual burrows, eliminating uncertainty around successful fledging attempts. Dimensionality reduction metrics derived from time series suggests non-breeding may be identifiable using linear discriminant analyses sizes our trial were low group means only significantly different during certain stages (permutational multivariate analysis variance: early chick-rearing f = 3.64, P 0.06; late 8.28, 0.009). Compared traditional techniques occupancy (e.g. manual inspection playback conspecific calls entrances), can reduce estimated potentially status burrows. Significant up-front investment is required terms equipment human resources long-term studies, deliver advantages, particularly when unanticipated novel observations potential calibrating methods factored in.