Look into evorta.  

It is an Australian company that is doing exactly this.  

You can.

• Have an offline camera that can be trained to ID specific species, 
• send you just the photos of those species via satellite 
• Or if you can get 4g send you all the photos to their online database. 
• They also have an online database that allows you to analyse the data in real time. 
• They can also hack normal camera traps so they can send photos back to the main unit to process and send valid photos.  That way you only need one ‘smart’ camera.  All the rest can be your exsisting cameras. You just need to use your sd card slot.  

Here is an article here  

 Best to contact him through email.  

I’ll send it to you privately 

Hi Sarah,

I am working with @Max_Sitt on the same project to develop artificial flowers as a platform for hoverfly monitoring (also as a landing platform for his camera trap).

We have preliminary results on the attractiveness of different shapes and colors on two hoverfly species in the lab. We can not help you with useful results without fieldwork data, but maybe some ideas.

According to the literature, bees will probably go for different (structurally more complex) flowers than hoverflies. If this is the case, you won't find a highly attractive "one-fits-all" solution for the shape or any other floral characteristic. However, the color could be the most basic flower trait and, therefore, could address a variety of pollinators. With a simple structure and a universally attractive color, you might have a chance for a good trade off between attractiveness and species spectrum.

The spray colors used as standard colors for pan traps in Germany (according to C. Westphal) could be a good start for you:

Sparvar 3107 "Leuchtblau", Sparvar 3104 (aka RAL 1026) "Leuchtgelb" and Sparvar "Leuchtweiß" 3108

These strong fluorescent colours have also been tested in Diestelhorst et al. 2014 (only available in German) and they showed a good response of pollinators in general for the white and yellow color in comparison with non-fluorescent colors. If you look for publications by Klaus Lunau, you will find a lot on fluorescent colors and UV-reflectance in (artificial) flowers. But once again, there seems to be no universal pattern among all flowers and all pollinators that we can use to trigger landings.

Currently, we are experimenting with fluorescent, translucent PMMA aka Suncatchers. When we sprayed orange Suncatchers with a strong fluorescent neon yellow on the bottom side, they were very attractive to one of our tested species. Their "sun catching effect" is then visible all over the surface as a diffuse glowing.

We also had good experiences with some glass droplets that resemble nectar. Specifically a half-sphere of 5 mm diameter with mirror foliage underneath. You can get them at a DIY store.

My best guess would be to paint a platform all green and then have circles in different diameters (2-8 cm) sprayed on them with the three pan trap colors. Add some glass droplets, and you might be good for now. However, the field trials will show how much my guesses are worth here:)

Best regards,

Max

Hi Sarah, 

I'm currently doing a PhD with @tom_august to create artificial flowers for pollinator monitoring. I'm currently looking into the key attraction cues for each broad group of diurnal pollinators. These include colour, UV, and scent and I will be performing experiments in the future to see how attractive artificial flowers can be using several different attraction cues.

Much like you already know, yellow, white and blue are good colours. A lot of insects have a preference for yellow and it is a very common generalist colour. A lot of fly species like yellow. Some insects like bees, bee-flies, and diurnal moths prefer blue. Butterflies have a preference for bright reds, oranges, and blues. It is worth having a mix of different colours if you want to attract wider variety of insects and using UV reflectance with the yellow should help as well. Like @MaximilianPink said, a green background has also shown to be effective for contrast. 

I'll be comparing the attraction of realistic 3D printed artificial flowers to coloured paper and pan traps in an experiment with naïve bumblebees soon so I can keep you updated on the results from that.  I hope in the future, if everything works, I can get a bunch of different monitoring system using my artificial flowers. 

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Abra 

Hi Chris, we looked into solar powered battery systems for Reconyx because we had a customer want to use them along side our Solar BAR bioacoustic recorder. We made a power out port and custom cable to run his camera traps and also so someone else in France could use them with another company's bat detector. Typically they had a 10W solar panel, 8Ah lead acid battery and a charge controller built into a sealed box stuck to the back of the solar panel. You could save some weight by choosing a LiFePo4 battery instead like this but you can only use them when you know you will charge them when the temperature is over 0 degrees C or you will damage them. Use lead acid if you're not sure they will always be charged over 0 degrees C.

You can find MPPT solar charge modules on Aliexpress and Ebay. I used the search term "mppt solar charge module". LiFePo4 can be charged at the same voltage as lead acid and most lead acid chargers do constant current charging anyway becuse you can use it with lithium batteries then as well. It's better to get a LiFePo4 charger if you can get it to make sure it's constant current then constant voltage but they're pretty tough unless you charge them under 0 degrees.

A typical 10W 12v solar panel will have it's Maximum Power Point at 18v so your charge controller must be set to 18v as it's input voltage. The panel will make a maximum of 20v when it's not plugged into anything. A 10W panel will make about 0.5A so if you pick a 3A charger it'll get limited to 0.5A because of the panel.

A module like this where the parameters are adjustable might be good.

On the other hand if you want something that can't be fiddled with after you made it get one with 18v MPPT voltage and set to charge a lead acid or whatever battery chemistry that you're using. Often using terms like lead acid when you search will help narrow it down. If you're going to use a 12v LiFePo4 note that's is a 3S 3.7v pack. That is 3 x 3.7v makes 11.1v (which they call a 12v pack).

If you're unsure feel free to email me at [email protected] to check what you're planning to buy.

If you're gluing a box with the charge controller onto the back of a solar panel use neutral cure silicone or check with the supplier about what glue you can use if you need something stronger than that.

If there is sufficient demand for these sorts of accessories please let me know and we can consider it as a product. 

Mark

Hey there! Not sure what your funding constraints are but I have been using Reolink Go PT, which is solar powered. This model has been discontinued. However they have an upgraded version. Adding link here. 

I have used this in the field in the swaps of Florida, exposed to heat, humidity and moisture. It has held up really well. Great sensors that can even be adjusted for sensitivity.

Not sure if audio data would be of any use to you, but if so FishSounds has some - I just tried their search function and there is a location tag for 'Mediterranean & Black Sea'. 

You might try reaching out to the folks at Name that Fish, Innovasea, or perhaps an entity on the Fisheries Tech list would have Mediterranean stuff? 

Hi,

If this is still relevant, you can try reaching out to the Belmaker lab, they do BRUV surveys in the eastern Mediterranean and have hours of video, some of it I believe is annotated. Particularly, Shahar might be helpful, he's the PhD student running point on the project.

We have made available our underwater videos on YouTube as a playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnhVZKKy8WkZKriCIV6r7upWhHNVrU_7L 

It's about 1.113 short video clips with annotation and each is linked to the corresponding www.iNaturalist.org observations. The iNaturalist.org observations are research quality and have been uploaded to GBIF.org. The observations have been made between 2014 and 2022 around the Ionian Islands (Greece).

If you would need the original videos please contact me.

Hi @vishnuthavara so you need a camera that does both timelapse and is motion activated? Something like this maybe: 

Hi Vishnu,

Considering only motion detection video, it is possible to modify (most) camera traps to trigger an external piece of equipment like an audio recorder.  I'm not aware of any suitable off-the-shelf recorder, but I can build you one.  However many camera traps that will take video will also record audio, although the quality may not be suitable for all types of audio analysis.

Hi Tom,

I'm with Akiba, you have to test.  A collaborator has deployed solar-augmented kit in secondary jungle and some of them got enough light, and others didn't, so it can work.  The open circuit voltage of solar panels doesn't change a whole lot in dim light, but the current drops drastically.  So you would choose an oversize panel of the same voltage (or a bit higher).

Thanks

I've been intrigued by this topic. Thinking about ways you could use drones or some kind of launcher to deploy panels above the canopy. Sadly I live in the great white north so I have no way of testing any concepts. Maybe even some kind of solar balloon that could float above the canopy. Interesting design problem.

Hey Tom,
Since the output is dependent on a couple of factors such as the solar irradiance of the place, shading from the canopy, the type of solar panels (mono, poly or amorphous) and orientation of the panels, etc, I'd suggest you use a software to simulate the different parameters to get an almost accurate estimation of the output. You can try PVsyst- it has a free month trial (I haven't used it before but I hear it's great) or any other PV software :)

Hi Chris, 

We developed a time-lapse camera for Penguin Watch that ran for 3 years straight in Antarctica, so should be able to survive in the Arctic. With your Plotwatcher did you use any supplementary solar (we do in the summer months). If not, we're aiming to upgrade the camera and introduce a lower power camera module this year, which should get you the 500k images on 4 x AA 1.5v batteries, but we're a number of months away from that build so couldn't help you right away. It would be good to keep in touch to see where you get and we can help you downstream. 

More on the current camera here; 

https://arribada.org/2021/12/16/three-years-in-antarctica-affordable-and-durable-time-lapse-monitoring