The Motion Picture: Leveraging Movement to Enhance AI Object Detection in Ecology.

ABSTRACT: The rise of AI has seen an explosion in the use of deep learning methods that automate the analysis of image and video data, saving ecologists vast amounts of time and resources. Ecological imagery poses unique challenges; however, with cryptic species struggling to be detected among poor visibility and diverse environments. We propose leveraging movement information to attempt to improve the predictions produced by a high-performing object detection algorithm. Frame differencing, background subtraction, optical flow and multi-object tracking are trialed on four diverse datasets containing over 35,000 annotated images sourced from terrestrial, marine and freshwater habitats. We find that leveraging movement information is useful for smaller sized studies and rarer species, however is not n

SUBMITTER: Maslen B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12364559 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature