Garcia Jose A, Sbragaglia Valerio, Masip David, Aguzzi Jacopo
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya; Institute of Marine Sciences, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC);
Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA); Department of Biology and Ecology of Fishes, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries.
J Vis Exp. 2019 Apr 8(146). doi: 10.3791/58515.
We present a protocol related to a video-tracking technique based on the background subtraction and image thresholding that makes it possible to individually track cohoused animals. We tested the tracking routine with four cohoused Norway lobsters (Nephrops norvegicus) under light-darkness conditions for 5 days. The lobsters had been individually tagged. The experimental setup and the tracking techniques used are entirely based on the open source software. The comparison of the tracking output with a manual detection indicates that the lobsters were correctly detected 69% of the times. Among the correctly detected lobsters, their individual tags were correctly identified 89.5% of the times. Considering the frame rate used in the protocol and the movement rate of lobsters, the performance of the video tracking has a good quality, and the representative results support the validity of the protocol in producing valuable data for research needs (individual space occupancy or locomotor activity patterns). The protocol presented here can be easily customized and is, hence, transferable to other species where the individual tracking of specimens in a group can be valuable for answering research questions.
我们提出了一种基于背景减法和图像阈值处理的视频跟踪技术相关协议，该协议使得单独跟踪同笼饲养的动物成为可能。我们在明暗条件下对四只同笼饲养的挪威龙虾（Nephrops norvegicus）进行了为期5天的跟踪程序测试。这些龙虾已被单独标记。实验装置和所使用的跟踪技术完全基于开源软件。将跟踪输出与人工检测进行比较表明，龙虾被正确检测到的次数占69%。在被正确检测到的龙虾中，它们的个体标签被正确识别的次数占89.5%。考虑到协议中使用的帧率和龙虾的移动速度，视频跟踪性能良好，代表性结果支持该协议在为研究需求（个体空间占用或运动活动模式）生成有价值数据方面的有效性。这里提出的协议可以很容易地进行定制，因此可转移到其他物种，在这些物种中，对群体中的标本进行个体跟踪对于回答研究问题可能很有价值。
