Wildlife activity under covid

Many projects use trail cameras to monitor wildlife. The camera pictures reveal which species are active at a given time of day and season. In a recent publication in Nature Ecology & Evolution, different projects around the globe shared their image data to study how changes in human area use during the pandemic affected wildlife activity. In some areas, human activity increased, while other areas had human access restricted. In undeveloped areas with high human activity, mammals became less active, while mammals in developed areas with high human activity became more active and more nocturnal. Carnivores were most sensitive, showing the strongest decreases in activity and greatest increases in nocturnality. More results are available in the publication of Burton et al. 2024: Mammal responses to global changes in human activity vary by trophic group and landscape. Nature Ecology & Evolution.