2023-04-18 スウォンジー大学
この手法を使用することで、グルーミング行動を正確に算出することができるようになり、今後の研究方向が開かれることになる。以前は、観察データからグルーミング行動の量を決定していたが、研究者が同時に監視できる動物数に限りがあるため、より正確な結果が得られるようになった。
<関連情報>
- https://www.swansea.ac.uk/press-office/news-events/news/2023/04/study-shows-how-machine-learning-can-identify-social-grooming-behaviour-from-acceleration-signals-in-wild-baboons.php
- https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.221103
3軸加速度データと機械学習を用いた野生のチャクマヒヒ(Papio ursinus)のアロ・グルーミングの定量化。 Quantifying allo-grooming in wild chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) using tri-axial acceleration data and machine learning
Charlotte Christensen,Anna M. Bracken,M. Justin O’Riain,Gaëlle Fehlmann,Mark Holton,Phillip Hopkins,Andrew J. King and Ines Fürtbauer
Royal Society Open Science Published:12 April 2023
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.221103
Abstract
Quantification of activity budgets is pivotal for understanding how animals respond to changes in their environment. Social grooming is a key activity that underpins various social processes with consequences for health and fitness. Traditional methods use direct (focal) observations to calculate grooming rates, providing systematic but sparse data. Accelerometers, in contrast, can quantify activity budgets continuously but have not been used to quantify social grooming. We test whether grooming can be accurately identified using machine learning (random forest model) trained on labelled acceleration data from wild chacma baboons (Papio ursinus). We successfully identified giving and receiving grooming with high precision (81% and 91%) and recall (87% and 79%). Giving grooming was associated with a distinct rhythmical signal along the surge axis. Receiving grooming had similar acceleration signals to resting, and thus was more difficult to assign. We applied our machine learning model to n = 680 collar data days from n = 12 baboons and found that grooming rates obtained from accelerometers were significantly and positively correlated with direct observation rates for giving but not receiving grooming. The ability to collect continuous grooming data in wild populations will allow researchers to re-examine and expand upon long-standing questions regarding the formation and function of grooming bonds.
