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Spot the match – wildlife photo-identification using information theory

BACKGROUND: Effective approaches for the management and conservation of wildlife populations require a sound knowledge of population demographics, and this is often only possible through mark-recapture studies. We applied an automated spot-recognition program (I(3)S) for matching natural markings of...

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Autores principales: Speed, Conrad W, Meekan, Mark G, Bradshaw, Corey JA
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2007
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1781941/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17227581
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-9994-4-2
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author Speed, Conrad W
Meekan, Mark G
Bradshaw, Corey JA
author_facet Speed, Conrad W
Meekan, Mark G
Bradshaw, Corey JA
author_sort Speed, Conrad W
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Effective approaches for the management and conservation of wildlife populations require a sound knowledge of population demographics, and this is often only possible through mark-recapture studies. We applied an automated spot-recognition program (I(3)S) for matching natural markings of wildlife that is based on a novel information-theoretic approach to incorporate matching uncertainty. Using a photo-identification database of whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) as an example case, the information criterion (IC) algorithm we developed resulted in a parsimonious ranking of potential matches of individuals in an image library. Automated matches were compared to manual-matching results to test the performance of the software and algorithm. RESULTS: Validation of matched and non-matched images provided a threshold IC weight (approximately 0.2) below which match certainty was not assured. Most images tested were assigned correctly; however, scores for the by-eye comparison were lower than expected, possibly due to the low sample size. The effect of increasing horizontal angle of sharks in images reduced matching likelihood considerably. There was a negative linear relationship between the number of matching spot pairs and matching score, but this relationship disappeared when using the IC algorithm. CONCLUSION: The software and use of easily applied information-theoretic scores of match parsimony provide a reliable and freely available method for individual identification of wildlife, with wide applications and the potential to improve mark-recapture studies without resorting to invasive marking techniques.
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spelling pubmed-17819412007-01-30 Spot the match – wildlife photo-identification using information theory Speed, Conrad W Meekan, Mark G Bradshaw, Corey JA Front Zool Research BACKGROUND: Effective approaches for the management and conservation of wildlife populations require a sound knowledge of population demographics, and this is often only possible through mark-recapture studies. We applied an automated spot-recognition program (I(3)S) for matching natural markings of wildlife that is based on a novel information-theoretic approach to incorporate matching uncertainty. Using a photo-identification database of whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) as an example case, the information criterion (IC) algorithm we developed resulted in a parsimonious ranking of potential matches of individuals in an image library. Automated matches were compared to manual-matching results to test the performance of the software and algorithm. RESULTS: Validation of matched and non-matched images provided a threshold IC weight (approximately 0.2) below which match certainty was not assured. Most images tested were assigned correctly; however, scores for the by-eye comparison were lower than expected, possibly due to the low sample size. The effect of increasing horizontal angle of sharks in images reduced matching likelihood considerably. There was a negative linear relationship between the number of matching spot pairs and matching score, but this relationship disappeared when using the IC algorithm. CONCLUSION: The software and use of easily applied information-theoretic scores of match parsimony provide a reliable and freely available method for individual identification of wildlife, with wide applications and the potential to improve mark-recapture studies without resorting to invasive marking techniques. BioMed Central 2007-01-16 /pmc/articles/PMC1781941/ /pubmed/17227581 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-9994-4-2 Text en Copyright © 2007 Speed et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Speed, Conrad W
Meekan, Mark G
Bradshaw, Corey JA
Spot the match – wildlife photo-identification using information theory
title Spot the match – wildlife photo-identification using information theory
title_full Spot the match – wildlife photo-identification using information theory
title_fullStr Spot the match – wildlife photo-identification using information theory
title_full_unstemmed Spot the match – wildlife photo-identification using information theory
title_short Spot the match – wildlife photo-identification using information theory
title_sort spot the match – wildlife photo-identification using information theory
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1781941/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17227581
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-9994-4-2
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