Camera traps in animal ecology and conservation: What's next?

As documented in the preceding chapters, the use of camera traps in animal ­ecology has undergone an appropriate and substantive evolution. This evolution has included the general uses of camera traps and the resulting data, as well as more specific topics such as equipment and statistical inference methods. Collectively, the contributions of this volume should not be viewed as an endpoint summary, but as a milestone along this evolutionary path. The various authors have attempted to briefly summarize that evolution, to describe current methods and uses of camera trap data, and to provide some new methods that we expect to see increased use in the future. In this chapter, we use the preceding chapters to provide brief summaries of the current state of the art and science of camera trap use and then provide speculation and recommendations about changes that we anticipate and hope for in the next decade. In terms of organization, we first focus on the overall uses of camera traps and resulting data, as these uses provide the framework needed to evaluate all further methodological developments. We then ­discuss equipment and finish with a review of statistical inference methods.