CAMERA TRAP MONITORING OF CROP-ADJACENT WETLANDS TO EVALUATE FOOD SAFETY RISK | |||
| Cozette F Wood; California State University Monterey Bay; cwood2023hi@gmail.com; Tyler Gianni, Jennifer Duggan | |||
Wetlands provide key ecosystem services by filtering sediment and runoff as well as mitigating flood risk, which are particularly valuable services in agricultural areas. Degraded or unrestored wetlands do not fully perform these functions, making wetland restoration an important tool for natural resource management. Wetlands also provide habitat for diverse wildlife, raising concern amongst crop growers that animals from restored wetlands will enter adjacent agricultural fields, damaging crops and compromising food safety. As a first step in assessing risk posed by restored wetlands to nearby agricultural fields, we are evaluating how species richness and relative abundance of wildlife at native and restored wetland sites compares with that at unrestored sites. To do this we are deploying camera traps at natural, restored, and unrestored wetland sites adjacent to crop fields in central coastal California, sampling at each site for two weeks during the dry season (May- September) and two weeks during the wet season (October-April). Camera trapping is in progress and will yield results to be reported upon completion. After this step, we will combine these data with existing information on pathogen prevalence in local wildlife species to empirically assess food safety risks connected with wetland habitat near crop fields. | |||
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