Speaker: Dr Hemal Naik (Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz & Germany Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Germany)
Time: 13:00, 15th May 2025
Location/Room: Wallace Zoology Museum, Park Campus
Intraspecific behavioral variation is a key driver of behavioral diversity in animals. However, studying such variation in wild populations remains challenging, particularly when multiple individuals interact in complex social contexts. While video recordings are commonly used to quantify social behavior, manual observations often lack the resolution needed to detect subtle behavioral differences between individuals. I propose a novel AI-based approach for automatically quantifying behavioral activity in animal groups. This method leverages 3D computer vision to track the movement and posture of animals in three-dimensional space. Automated tracking allows high-resolution monitoring of individual behavioral repertoires and provides additional measurements such as body shape, size, inter-individual distances, and movement speed. I will demonstrate the utility of this approach through two ongoing case studies involving birds and ungulates. These examples highlight how computer vision and AI can serve as powerful tools for analysing behavioural variation in large-scale datasets, with broad applications in ecological research and conservation.
For more info contact: Host – Andrew King, a.j.king@swansea.ac.uk
