Machine learning workflows detect ground-dwelling arthropods against heterogenous backgrounds

Camera-based monitoring of arthropods is an emerging tool for studying activity, abundance, and behavior. However, many current approaches rely on custom-built camera systems and complex analytical workflows, which limit accessibility and broader adoption. In addition, most arthropod camera-monitoring systems image subjects against uniform backgrounds, conditions that may alter natural activity patterns and reduce ecological realism. Here, we present a camera-monitoring workflow designed to increase accessibility by using commercially available game cameras coupled with a streamlined image-processing pipeline. We evaluated the performance of this approach by imaging arthropods against a complex, heterogeneous background to assess its effectiveness under conditions more representative of field environments. Our object-detection model performed reliably across evaluation metrics and accurately identified arthropods captured in the images despite background complexity. These results demonstrate that low-cost, widely available camera systems can be integrated with simplified analytical workflows to enable effective arthropod monitoring without specialized hardware. This approach provides a scalable and accessible method for studying arthropods in more natural contexts and may facilitate broader adoption of camera-based monitoring in ecological research and biodiversity assessments.