Abstract
Tracking the movement of all individual group members in their natural environment remains a challenging task. Using advances in computer vision and Deep Learning, we developed and tested a semi-automated in situ tracking system to reconstruct simultaneous three-dimensional trajectories of marked individuals in social groups of a coral-reef fish. Our system has a temporal resolution of 10s of milliseconds, allowing for multiple 30-min tracking sessions that have been repeated over weeks to months. We present the technique and illustrate its application for Dascyllus marginatus, a planktivorous damselfish that lives in social groups associated with branching corals. Our technique identified all individuals 85–100% of the time, with a mean spatial error of ~ 1.3 cm. It provides a cost-effective semi-automated tool for in situ research on movements and foraging of individuals within small site-attached groups of animals in their natural environment.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 579-588 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Limnology and Oceanography: Methods |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 9 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Science of Eilat (IUI) and its local staff for their helpful assistance with the field and especially Moty Ohevia for skillfully constructing the 3D camera system. We thank the marine ecology group at the IUI and the movement ecology group at the Hebrew University for insightful discussions, and especially Shir Bar for many shared dives and useful comments. We are grateful to Ty Hedrick for the free distribution of DLTdv and EasyWand and for his many useful advice to resolve several issues with the camera calibration. The study was supported by Israel Science Foundation grant ISF‐1211/14 to A.G. and grant ISF‐964/13 to R.N. A.E. was supported by the Minerva Center for Movement Ecology, and by fellowships from the Advanced School of Environmental Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the IUI.
Funding Information:
We thank the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Science of Eilat (IUI) and its local staff for their helpful assistance with the field and especially Moty Ohevia for skillfully constructing the 3D camera system. We thank the marine ecology group at the IUI and the movement ecology group at the Hebrew University for insightful discussions, and especially Shir Bar for many shared dives and useful comments. We are grateful to Ty Hedrick for the free distribution of DLTdv and EasyWand and for his many useful advice to resolve several issues with the camera calibration. The study was supported by Israel Science Foundation grant ISF-1211/14 to A.G. and grant ISF-964/13 to R.N. A.E. was supported by the Minerva Center for Movement Ecology, and by fellowships from the Advanced School of Environmental Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the IUI.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography.