Journal
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
Volume 11, Issue 17, Pages 12051-12063Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/ece3.7970
Keywords
camera trap; deep learning; neural network; transfer learning; wildlife ecology
Categories
Funding
- Samuel Freeman Charitable Trust
- University of South Carolina Honors College
- University of South Carolina Office of Research
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Utilizing transfer learning, a CNN model was created to efficiently identify and classify species with high accuracy and F1 score using a small dataset. This demonstrates that ideal accuracy can be achieved with fewer images than previously thought necessary.
Camera traps have become an extensively utilized tool in ecological research, but the manual processing of images created by a network of camera traps rapidly becomes an overwhelming task, even for small camera trap studies. We used transfer learning to create convolutional neural network (CNN) models for identification and classification. By utilizing a small dataset with an average of 275 labeled images per species class, the model was able to distinguish between species and remove false triggers. We trained the model to detect 17 object classes with individual species identification, reaching an accuracy up to 92% and an average F1 score of 85%. Previous studies have suggested the need for thousands of images of each object class to reach results comparable to those achieved by human observers; however, we show that such accuracy can be achieved with fewer images. With transfer learning and an ongoing camera trap study, a deep learning model can be successfully created by a small camera trap study. A generalizable model produced from an unbalanced class set can be utilized to extract trap events that can later be confirmed by human processors.
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