digital 3D model; foot; footprint; anteroposterior; mediolateral; geometric morphometrics; Panthera leo; photogrammetry; tracking
Abstract :
[en] Estimating the distribution and status of animal populations is crucial in various fields of biology. Monitoring species via their tracks is controversial due to unreliable recording techniques, manipulator bias and substrate variation. Furthermore, subjective identification of the foot that produces each track can lead to significant errors, for example, when assigning tracks made by different feet from the same individual to different individuals. The aim of this research was to develop an accurate, consistent and objective algorithm to identify the anteroposterior (hind/front) and mediolateral (right/left) position from digital threedimensional (3D) models of African lion (Panthera leo) paws and tracks using geometric morphometrics. We manually positioned 12 fixed landmarks on 132 paws and 182 tracks recorded in 3D using digital close-range photogrammetry. We used geometric morphometrics to evaluate and visualize the shape variation between paws and between tracks along the anteroposterior and mediolateral axes, and between paws and tracks. The identification algorithm using linear discriminant analysis with jack-knifed predictions reached a maximum accuracy of 95.45% and 91.21% for paws and tracks, respectively.We recommend the use of this objective position identification algorithm in future studies where tracks are compared between individual African lions.
Disciplines :
Life sciences: Multidisciplinary, general & others Zoology Agriculture & agronomy
Author, co-author :
Marchal, Antoine F.J.
Lejeune, Philippe ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Ingénierie des biosystèmes (Biose) > Gestion des ressources forestières et des milieux naturels
de Bruyn, P.J. Nico
Language :
English
Title :
Identification of the anteroposterior and mediolateral position of lion paws and tracks using 3D geometric morphometrics
Publication date :
October 2017
Journal title :
African Journal of Wildlife Research
ISSN :
2410-7220
eISSN :
2410-8200
Publisher :
Southern African Wildlife Management Association, Bloubergstrand, South Africa
Adams, D.C. & Otárola-Castillo, E. (2013). geomorph: an R package for the collection and analysis of geometric morphometric shape data. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 4(4), 393–399.
Adams, D.C., Collyer, M.L. & Sherratt, E. (2015). geomorph: software for geometric morphometric analyses. R package version 2.1.7. Retrieved from: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/geomorph/index.html on 22 September 2015.
Bennett, M. R., Falkingham, P., Morse, S. A., Bates, K. & Crompton, R. H. (2013). Preserving the impossible: conservation of soft-sediment hominin footprint sites and strategies for three-dimensional digital data capture. PLOS ONE, 8(4), e60755.
Bookstein, F.L. (1991). Morphometric tools for landmark data: geometry and biology. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Cardillo, M., Purvis, A., Sechrest, W., Gittleman, J.L., Bielby, J. & Mace, G.M. (2004). Human population density and extinction risk in the world’s carnivores. PLOS Biology, 2(7), 0909–0914.
Ceballos, G., Ehrlich, P.R., Barnosky, A.D., García, A., Pringle, R.M. & Palmer, T.M. (2015). Accelerated modern human-induced species losses: entering the sixth mass extinction. Science Advances, 1(5), e1400253.
Grigione, M.M., Burman, P., Bleich, V.C. & Pierce, B.M. (1999). Identifying individual mountain lions Felis concolor by their tracks: refinement of an innovative technique. Biological Conservation, 88(1), 25–32.
Heinemeyer, K.S., Ulizio, T.J. & Harrison, R.L. (2008). Natural sign: tracks and scats. In R.A. Long, P. MacKay, W.J. Zielinski & J.C. Ray (Eds.), Noninvasive survey methods for carnivores (pp. 45–74). Washington, U.S.A.: Island Press.
Jewell, Z.C., Alibhai, S.K. & Evans, J.W. (2014). Monitoring mountain lion using footprints: a robust new technique. Wild Felid Monitor, 7(1), 26–27.
Jewell, Z.C., Alibhai, S.K., Weise, F., Munro, S., Van Vuuren, M. & Van Vuuren, R. (2016). Spotting cheetahs: identifying individuals by their footprints. Journal of Visualized Experiments, (111), e54034–e54034.
Karanth, K.U., Nichols, J.D., Seidenstricker, J., Diner-stein, E., Smith, J.L.D., McDougal, C., Johnsingh, A.J.T., Chundawat, R.S. & Thapar, V. (2003). Science deficiency in conservation practice: the monitoring of tiger populations in India. Animal Conservation, 6(2), 141–146.
Keating, A. P., Knox, J., Bibb, R. & Zhurov, A. I. (2008). A comparison of plaster, digital and reconstructed study model accuracy. Journal of Orthodontics, 35(3), 191–201.
Liebenberg, L. (1990). A field guide to the animal tracks of southern Africa. Claremont, South Africa: David Philip.
Liebenberg, L., Louw, A. & Elbroch, M. (2010). Practical tracking: a guide to following footprints and finding animals. Mechanicsburg, U.S.A.: Stackpole Books.
Marchal, A.F.J., Lejeune, P. & De Bruyn, P.J.N. (2016). Virtual plaster cast: digital 3D modelling of lion paws and tracks using close-range photogrammetry. Journal of Zoology, 300(2), 111–119.
R Development Core Team (2014). R: a language and environment for statistical computing. Reference index version 3.2.2. Retrieved from: http://www.R-project.org/ on 14 August 2015.
Riordan, P. (1998). Unsupervised recognition of individual tigers and snow leopards from their footprints. Animal Conservation, 1(04), 253–262.
Rohlf, F.J. & Slice, D. (1990). Extensions of the Procrustes method for the optimal superimposition of landmarks. Systematic Biology, 39(1), 40–59.
Sharma, S., Jhala, Y. & Sawarkar, V.B. (2005). Identification of individual tigers (Panthera tigris) from their pugmarks. Journal of Zoology, 267(1), 9–18.
Smallwood, K. S. & Fitzhugh, E. L. (1993). A rigorous technique for identifying individual mountain lions Felis concolor by their tracks. Biological Conservation, 65(1), 51–59.
Yoccoz, N.G., Nichols, J.D. & Boulinier, T. (2001). Monitoring of biological diversity in space and time. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 16(8), 446–453.
Zelditch, M.L., Swiderski, D.L. & Sheets, H.D. (2012). Geometric morphometrics for biologists: a primer (2nd edin). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Academic Press.
