Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Correcting random effect distributions to account for survivorship bias in individual heterogeneity Cormack-Jolly-Seber models.

Biometrics·2026

Same author

Real-Time Auto-Monitoring of Livestock: Quantitative Framework and Challenges.

Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)·2025

Same author

Causes of evolutionary divergence in prostate cancer.

ArXiv·2025

Same author

Re: Estimation of opioid misuse prevalence in New York State counties, 2007-2018. A Bayesian spatio-temporal abundance model approach.

American journal of epidemiology·2025

Same author

Using Machine Learning on MRI Radiomics to Diagnose Parotid Tumours Before Comparing Performance with Radiologists: A Pilot Study.

Journal of imaging informatics in medicine·2024

Same author

Changing the paradigm for primary research dissemination.

Wellcome open research·2024

Same journal

High Early Embryo Mortality and Low Hatching Success Observed in Aldabra Giant Tortoise Populations.

Ecology and evolution·2026

Same journal

Seasonal Differences in Migration Routes and Stopover Use of Greater Sand Plovers Between Mongolia and the Beibu Gulf Revealed by GPS Tracking.

Ecology and evolution·2026

Same journal

Shrub Encroachment Rewires Microbial Networks to Suppress Soil Organic Carbon Mineralization in Subalpine Meadows.

Ecology and evolution·2026

Same journal

Toward Precision Biodiversity Detection: An Edge-Deployable Framework for Mitigating Data Redundancy.

Ecology and evolution·2026

Same journal

The Plasticity of the Antioxidant Defence System of Coastal Zooplankton Communities.

Ecology and evolution·2026

Same journal

A Tale of Tail Loss: Fine-Scale Landscape Composition Predicts Caudal Autotomy Along an Urban Gradient in Two Congeneric Lizards.

Ecology and evolution·2026

See all related articles

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 1, 2025

Long-term Video Tracking of Cohoused Aquatic Animals: A Case Study of the Daily Locomotor Activity of the Norway Lobster Nephrops norvegicus

Long-term Video Tracking of Cohoused Aquatic Animals: A Case Study of the Daily Locomotor Activity of the Norway Lobster Nephrops norvegicus

Published on: April 8, 2019

Validating hidden Markov models for seabird behavioural inference.

Rebecca A Akeresola^1,2, Adam Butler², Esther L Jones²

¹School of Mathematics and Maxwell Institute for Mathematical Sciences University of Edinburgh Edinburgh UK.

Ecology and Evolution

|March 5, 2024

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Hidden Markov models (HMMs) accurately infer seabird behaviors from tracking data, validated by visual tracking. This improves conservation planning by providing reliable animal movement insights.

Keywords:

GPS data conservation movement data movement modelling visual tracking

More Related Videos

Probing the Limits of Egg Recognition Using Egg Rejection Experiments Along Phenotypic Gradients

Probing the Limits of Egg Recognition Using Egg Rejection Experiments Along Phenotypic Gradients

Published on: August 22, 2018

A Video Surveillance System to Monitor Breeding Colonies of Common Terns Sterna Hirundo

A Video Surveillance System to Monitor Breeding Colonies of Common Terns Sterna Hirundo

Published on: July 22, 2018

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 1, 2025

Long-term Video Tracking of Cohoused Aquatic Animals: A Case Study of the Daily Locomotor Activity of the Norway Lobster Nephrops norvegicus

Long-term Video Tracking of Cohoused Aquatic Animals: A Case Study of the Daily Locomotor Activity of the Norway Lobster Nephrops norvegicus

Published on: April 8, 2019

Probing the Limits of Egg Recognition Using Egg Rejection Experiments Along Phenotypic Gradients

Probing the Limits of Egg Recognition Using Egg Rejection Experiments Along Phenotypic Gradients

Published on: August 22, 2018

A Video Surveillance System to Monitor Breeding Colonies of Common Terns Sterna Hirundo

A Video Surveillance System to Monitor Breeding Colonies of Common Terns Sterna Hirundo

Published on: July 22, 2018

Area of Science:

Marine ecology
Animal behavior
Conservation science

Background:

Observing animal behavior in marine environments is challenging.
Hidden Markov models (HMMs) infer behaviors from telemetry data.
Validating these inferred behaviors is difficult due to lack of ground truth data.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the accuracy of HMMs for inferring seabird behaviors.
To validate HMM-derived behaviors using simultaneous visual tracking data.
To assess the conservation implications of accurate behavioral inference.

Main Methods:

Utilized a unique dataset of simultaneous boat-based visual tracking and seabird behavior observations.
Applied Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) to telemetry data to infer animal states.
Compared HMM-inferred behaviors against a 'gold standard' of manually classified visual tracking data.

Main Results:

HMM accuracy ranged from 71% to 87% during chick-rearing and 54% to 70% during incubation.
Model choice had minimal impact on accuracy, even with varying AIC values.
Missed foraging bouts, critical for conservation, were identified as lasting only a few seconds.

Conclusions:

HMMs reliably identify key conservation-relevant seabird behaviors when validated.
Visual tracking data serves as a robust method for validating HMM behavioral inferences.
Increased confidence in using HMMs for animal behavior analysis in conservation is warranted, with a call for integrated validation data collection.