title: Automated long-term tracking and social behavioural phenotyping of animal colonies within a semi-natural environment.
abstract: Social behaviour has a key role in animal survival across species, ranging from insects to primates and humans. However, the biological mechanisms driving natural interactions between multiple animals, over long-term periods, are poorly studied and remain elusive. Rigorous and objective quantification of behavioural parameters within a group poses a major challenge as it requires simultaneous monitoring of the positions of several individuals and comprehensive consideration of many complex factors. Automatic tracking and phenotyping of interacting animals could thus overcome the limitations of manual tracking methods. Here we report a broadly applicable system that automatically tracks the locations of multiple, uniquely identified animals, such as mice, within a semi-natural setting. The system combines video and radio frequency identified tracking data to obtain detailed behavioural profiles of both individuals and groups. We demonstrate the usefulness of these data in characterizing individual phenotypes, interactions between pairs and the collective social organization of groups.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
authors.forename: Aharon
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Weissbrod
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shapiro
authors.forename: Genadiy
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Vasserman
authors.forename: Liat
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Edry
authors.forename: Molly
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dayan
authors.forename: Assif
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yitzhaky
authors.forename: Libi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hertzberg
authors.forename: Ofer
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Feinerman
authors.forename: Tali
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kimchi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001331:Automation; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D003433:Crosses, Genetic; D003625:Data Collection; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D006608:Hierarchy, Social; D008124:Locomotion; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D010641:Phenotype; D057233:Radio Frequency Identification Device / Q000379:methods*; D012919:Social Behavior; D013997:Time Factors; D014741:Video Recording