Mammal assemblages recorded by camera traps inside and outside the evacuation zone of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident

Abstract

Abstract In 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant accident resulted in the evacuation of about 81,000 people from the evacuation zone, which suffered from high levels of radioactive contamination. Large‐scale and long‐term land abandonment can cause changes in species assemblages. Despite the extensive global attention this incident received, open and spatially‐explicit datasets of mammal fauna from Fukushima remain quite limited. We established a continuous monitoring protocol using camera traps for mammals both inside and outside the evacuation zone; this paper presents our first dataset. These data represent the monitoring results from 45 camera traps from May 2014 to October 2014, including the location and actuation time of each camera, and the list of video records. After the publication of this initial data paper, we intend to continue monitoring until 2023 and the dataset will be hereafter updated with new observations.