scholarly journals BEEtag : a low-cost, image-based tracking system for the study of animal behavior and locomotion

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Crall ◽  
Nick Gravish ◽  
Andrew M Mountcastle ◽  
Stacey A Combes

A fundamental challenge common to studies of animal movement, behavior, and ecology is the collection of high-quality datasets on spatial positions of animals as they change through space and time. Recent innovations in tracking technology have allowed researchers to collect large and highly accurate datasets on animal spatiotemporal position while vastly decreasing the time and cost of collecting such data. One technique that is of particular relevance to the study of behavioral ecology involves tracking visual tags that can be uniquely identified in separate images or movie frames. These tags can be located within images that are visually complex, making them particularly well suited for longitudinal studies of animal behavior and movement in naturalistic environments. While several software packages have been developed that use computer vision to identify visual tags, these software packages are either (a) not optimized for identification of single tags, which is generally of the most interest for biologist, or (b) suffer from licensing issues, and therefore their use in the study of animal behavior has been limited. Here, we present BEEtag, an open-source, image-based tracking system in Matlab that allows for unique identification of individual animals or anatomical markers. The primary advantages of this system are that it (a) independently identifies animals or marked points in each frame of a video, limiting error propagation, (b) performs well in images with complex background, and (c) is low-cost. To validate the use of this tracking system in animal behavior, we mark and track individual bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) and recover individual patterns of space use and activity within the hive. Finally, we discuss the advantages and limitations of this software package and its application to the study of animal movement, behavior, and ecology.

PLoS ONE ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. e0136487 ◽  
Author(s):  
James D. Crall ◽  
Nick Gravish ◽  
Andrew M. Mountcastle ◽  
Stacey A. Combes

Ecology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ambika Kamath

Territoriality is a foundational concept in animal behavior and behavioral ecology. Territoriality is commonly defined as “the defense of an area,” wherein the area being defended is known as the “territory.” Territoriality serves as a framework that allows animal behaviorists and behavioral ecologists to describe and hypothesize links among diverse aspects of animals’ biology. The many facets and functions of territoriality include the acquisition of food, nest sites, and shelter, space-use and movement behavior, and interactions with mates and competitors. Thus, because territoriality encompasses behaviors that directly determine individuals’ survival and reproduction (i.e., their fitness), it offers a powerful approach to understanding the evolution of animal behavior. Territoriality has been used to describe animal behavior for many centuries, particularly in avian systems; conversely, many advances in how biologists conceive of and use territoriality have arisen in research on birds. Operational definitions of territory fall broadly into two categories—those that focus on animals’ behavior and those that focus on their ecological relationships. That said, the question of how to conceive of territory has long been a subject of contention, with widely varied opinions on how the term should be defined and whether and how it is useful for understanding animal behavior. Discussions and critiques of territoriality, from not only animal behavior and behavioral ecology but also from the social sciences, help to contextualize and sharpen how we use the concept to understand the evolution of animal behavior. Technological and statistical advances continue to change the ways in which territories are mapped and quantified, with different methods available for taxa of different sizes, habitats, and life histories. Research on territoriality can be divided into two large domains based on the function served by territory—foraging and mating—but these two functions are intimately linked through the socioecological hypothesis that proposes a relationship between resource distributions and mating systems. This hypothesis has served to structure much research on territoriality in the last half-century or so. Finally, territoriality is pertinent not just to within-species interactions but also to between-species interactions and species coexistence, with implications for macroecological and macroevolutionary patterns and processes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Kerches-Rogeri ◽  
Danielle Leal Ramos ◽  
Jukka Siren ◽  
Beatriz de Oliveira Teles ◽  
Rafael Souza Cruz Alves ◽  
...  

Abstract Background There is growing evidence that individuals within populations can vary in both habitat use and movement behavior, but it is still not clear how these two relate to each other. The aim of this study was to test if and how individual bats in a Stunira lilium population differ in their movement activity and preferences for landscape features in a correlated manner. Methods We collected data on movements of 27 individuals using radio telemetry. We fitted a heterogeneous-space diffusion model to the movement data in order to evaluate signals of movement variation among individuals. Results S. lilium individuals generally preferred open habitat with Solanum fruits, regularly switched between forest and open areas, and showed high site fidelity. Movement variation among individuals could be summarized in four movement syndromes: (1) average individuals, (2) forest specialists, (3) explorers which prefer Piper, and (4) open area specialists which prefer Solanum and Cecropia. Conclusions Individual preferences for landscape features plus food resource and movement activity were correlated, resulting in different movement syndromes. Individual variation in preferences for landscape elements and food resources highlight the importance of incorporating explicitly the interaction between landscape structure and individual heterogeneity in descriptions of animal movement.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 613-619
Author(s):  
Li Kong ◽  
Yunpeng Zhang ◽  
Zhijian Lin ◽  
Zhongzhu Qiu ◽  
Chunying Li ◽  
...  

Abstract The present work aimed to select the optimum solar tracking mode for parabolic trough concentrating collectors using numerical simulation. The current work involved: (1) the calculation of daily solar radiation on the Earth’s surface, (2) the comparison of annual direct solar radiation received under different tracking modes and (3) the determination of optimum tilt angle for the north-south tilt tracking mode. It was found that the order of solar radiation received in Shanghai under the available tracking modes was: dual-axis tracking > north-south Earth’s axis tracking > north-south tilt tracking (β = 15°) > north-south tilt tracking (β = 45) > north-south horizontal tracking > east-west horizontal tracking. Single-axis solar tracking modes feature simple structures and low cost. This study also found that the solar radiation received under the north-south tilt tracking mode was higher than that of the north-south Earth’s axis tracking mode in 7 out of 12 months. Therefore, the north-south tilt tracking mode was studied separately to determine the corresponding optimum tilt angles in Haikou, Lhasa, Shanghai, Beijing and Hohhot, respectively, which were shown as follows: 18.81°, 27.29°, 28.67°, 36.21° and 37.97°.


2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Goryawala ◽  
Misael Del Valle ◽  
Jiali Wang ◽  
James Byrne ◽  
Juan Franquiz ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianyun Yuan ◽  
Yu (Wolf) Song ◽  
Gerald A. Kraan ◽  
Richard H. M. Goossens

Abstract Measuring the motion of human hand joints is a challenging task due to the high number of DOFs. In this study, we proposed a low-cost hand tracking system built on action cameras and ArUco markers to measure finger joint rotation angles. The lens distortion of each camera was corrected first via intra-calibration and the videos of different cameras were aligned to the reference camera using a dynamic time warping based method. Two methods were proposed and implemented for extracting the rotation angles of finger joints: one is based on the 3D positions of the markers via inter-calibration between cameras, named pos-based method; the other one is based on the relative marker orientation information from individual cameras, named rot-based method. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed system. The right hand of a volunteer was included in this practical study, where the movement of the fingers was recorded and the finger rotation angles were calculated with the two proposed methods, respectively. The results indicated that although using the rot-based method may collect less data than using the pos-based method, it was more stable and reliable. Therefore, the rot-based method is recommended for measuring finger joint rotation in practical setups.


Author(s):  
T. Hu ◽  
J. Fan ◽  
H. He ◽  
L. Qin ◽  
G. Li

To address the difficulty involved when using existing commercial Geographic Information System platforms to integrate multi-source image data fusion, this research proposes the loading of multi-source local tile data based on CesiumJS and examines the tile data organization mechanisms and spatial reference differences of the CesiumJS platform, as well as various tile data sources, such as Google maps, Map World, and Bing maps. Two types of tile data loading schemes have been designed for the mashup of tiles, the single data source loading scheme and the multi-data source loading scheme. The multi-sources of digital map tiles used in this paper cover two different but mainstream spatial references, the WGS84 coordinate system and the Web Mercator coordinate system. According to the experimental results, the single data source loading scheme and the multi-data source loading scheme with the same spatial coordinate system showed favorable visualization effects; however, the multi-data source loading scheme was prone to lead to tile image deformation when loading multi-source tile data with different spatial references. The resulting method provides a low cost and highly flexible solution for small and medium-scale GIS programs and has a certain potential for practical application values. The problem of deformation during the transition of different spatial references is an important topic for further research.


Author(s):  
V. Annapoorani ◽  
P. Rathna ◽  
C. Priyanka ◽  
B. Maheshwari ◽  
E. Leela

The paper reports an Internet of Thing (IoT) based health monitoring and tracking system for soldiers. The proposed system can be mounted on the soldier’s body to track their health status and current location using GPS. These information will be transmitted to the control room through IoT. The proposed system comprise of tiny wearable physiological equipment’s, sensors, transmission modules. Hence, with the use of the proposed equipment, it is possible to implement a low cost mechanism to protect the valuable human life on the battlefield


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document