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Along my professional practice, I was in charge of three main personal projects:
Photo-identification of bottlenose dolphins
Publication of an extended abstract for a conference in Italy
Designing of an identification guide of marine mammals in Montenegro for the citizen science project
photo-identification project
photo-identification project
Team work with Noemi Ruegg
Individual photographic identification (photo-ID) represents a powerful technique to study behavioural and population ecology of free-ranging animals.
All photo-ID studies require many hours of intensive field surveys and even longer hours of processing photographic material. Nowadays, high quality digital images can be obtained in a short space of time and the photo-ID data can be processed immediately upon the completion of a field day, even in remote locations where processing of traditional photographic material would not have been possible.
In marine mammals research, the photo-identification research allows the studies of site fidelity, population size, migration, status of a population, threat assessment, identification of key habitats, social structure of a population, and offspring cycle.
During the field trips, the aim is to obtain images of the dorsal fin of the individuals, both left and right side. Also, the angle of the pictures is important, the picture needs to be taken perpendicular to the dorsal fin since in that way the main details to recognize individuals such as nicks and scars will be clear.
Main traits in dolphins analyzed in photo-ID studies
Main traits in dolphins analyzed in photo-ID studies
Nicks: missing tissue that never grows back, long-lasting marks perfect for photo-identification.
Scars: marks easily visible in the skin, heals in a couple of month which makes them not trustful for photo-identification.
Other marks: propeller or fishing gear injuries along the body.
about discovery software
about discovery software
It is a platform to assist researchers not only with the matching of individual photo-ID data, but also at the multitude of steps of field data collection and the complex data management and analyses that follow after individual matching is completed.
The DISCOVERY software assists with filtering of raw data and all levels of individual-ID matching; it assists with processing, storing and managing digital images; it provides file naming routines and links sighting information with environmental, geographic, and numerous user-defined parameters; it provides graphic displays of data and basic analytical tools.
This program is free to use and can be download in the following webpage:
http://www.cetaecoresearch.com/research-software-discovery.html
*Only available for Windows operating system (XP/Vista/7/8/10).
DMAD's photo-id project
DMAD's photo-id project
This was my main personal project during my professional practice with DMAD. I had to work as a team with Noemi Ruegg, current intern from IMBRSea program and we were in charge of processing all the pictures taken in 2020 and 2021, approximately 11 files with 600 pictures on each one of them. We decided to split the files to work separately and faster in the edition, classification, and identification of individuals. During the the two-month professional practice period, we could not finish the analysis of all the images, but we have already identified resightings in 2020 of some individuals that for the first time they were sighted in 2017, and we have added some new individuals to the catalogue of Montenegro.
Along the process of the analysis of pictures using Discovery software, it is necessary to follow five main steps:
- FIlename
Choose all the pictures with dolphins that will be analyzed, identify the different groups of dolphins observed during the survey, erase the images separators between groups and rename all the useful pictures with a proper code for a better organization.
2. Filtering
2. Filtering
Separate all the pictures by the quality type (1,2,3, no info) and for the pictures with quality 1 and 2, it is necessary to edit the color, contrast and brightness of the pictures in order to highlight specific traits like nicks and scars in the dorsal fin.
3. Match same individuals
3. Match same individuals
During this step, you have to work with the QUALITY 1 and QUALITY 2 pictures on each group of dolphins identified on each boat survey. Then, the main idea of this step is to recognize all the images that are the same individual and regroup them in files per individual. Each new individual will have one unique file that will be named with its new ID: TempID0001, TempID0002, etc.
4. Thumbview
4. Thumbview
Select the best left and right side pictures of each individual. Only if there is no pictures of each side available, it is possible to select just one picture.
5. match with catalogue
5. match with catalogue
Compare the best pictures of each dolphin with the catalogue of Montenegro that DMAD has been working on since 2016. The goal of the fifth step is to try to identify if the individuals that have been observed during the 2020 or 2021 boat surveys were identified in previous years (rematch) or were new individuals that can be added to the catalogue (new sightings).
Challenges
Challenges
Personally, I think this is a time-consuming job, and due to the number of surveys plus the extra tasks of the IMBRSea program (Matix and Thesis), it was difficult to finish this project during our professional practice period. Nevertheless, we are still able to keep working in the analysis of the remaining pictures since our supervisor, Aylin Akkaya, is really interested in presenting the 2020 and 2021 photo-ID results in the conference in Italy.
submission extended abstract
submission extended abstract
Team work with Noemi Ruegg and Kenn Papadopoulo
Our supervisor Aylin Akkaya assigned the interns’ group to work as a team in the realization of a conference extended abstract of a manuscript in process to be published about abundance estimation, residency patterns and long-distance movements in the bottlenose dolphins in Montenegro.
Her idea is that we present the results in a conference in Italy called “Metrology for the Sea 2021” realized in October 4-6, 2021.
I worked in this project with Noemi Ruegg and Kenn Papadopoulo. We decided to split the parts of the manuscript in order that each one of us can work in the summary of the entire manuscript. Kenn was in charge of the Abstract and Introduction, Noemi of the Methods and Conclusions and I was in charge of the Results and Discussion. In the lasts weeks of our professional practice we finally submitted the conference extended abstract about "Bottlenose dolphins of Montenegro: Abundance Estimation and Residency Patterns". On July 20, 2021 we will know if our conference extended abstract was accepted.
About metrology for the sea 2021
About metrology for the sea 2021
MetroSea 2021 is the second edition of the IEEE International workshop that will take place on October 4-6, 2021 in Reggio Calabria, Italy. It will involve national and international institutions and academia in a discussion on the state-of-the-art concerning issues that require a joint approach by experts of measurement instrumentation and industrial testing, typically professional engineers, and experts in innovation metrology, typically academics.
Some of the main topics of the conference are:
Monitoring systems for the sea
Measures for Marine Biology
Measures for Coastal and Marine Geology
For more information: https://www.metrosea.org/
Challenges
Challenges
As a future marine researcher, I know the importance of publishing the results of all the investigations realized in order to continue generating knowledge of the marine environment. Personally, I think working in this project was very enriching for my career as a marine researcher. First, it was challenging working as a team since every person has different ways of writing and it is easy that the final result of the text does not have a continuity. Luckily, it was not our case and Aylin agrees that we could manage that situation satisfactorily. Additionally, it was my first time working in the publication of an extended abstract for a conference presentation, and as a future marine researcher, I know it will not be my last time publishing articles like that.
Identification guide of marine mammals in montenegro
Identification guide of marine mammals in montenegro
Personal project
During the thematic module of Marine Conservation in the Polytechnic University of Marche (Italy), I had a course about the designing and management of marine protected areas – MPA. In that course, I learned the importance of enrolling constantly local stakeholders in marine conservation projects and the importance of having a citizen science program.
In order to contribute to DMAD’s citizen science project, I decided to design an identification guide of marine mammals for Montenegro.
About dmad's citizen science project
About dmad's citizen science project
Montenegro Sightings Network is a project that has been established to collect dolphin sightings from citizen scientists across Montenegro's coast and waters.
The idea is to get pictures of dolphin or whale encounters taken by local fishermen, tourists or locals with some extra information such as:
Location
Time
Date of the encounter
This data will be used for research, tracking and photo-identification analysis. As a reward, DMAD wants to invite the people to a boat survey with DMAD’s researchers to learn more about their projects.
I think that an identification guide could be a nice material for realizing the boat survey with interns, volunteers and even with local people/stakeholders with no previous knowledge about cetacean’s identification. In that way it would be easier for them to identify the species that they will see in the Montenegrin waters. I am still working in the design of the identification guide, and I think it will be done for the end of July. This identification guide will be in three different languages (Montenegrin, Turkish and English) and I will include the marine mammals present in the Adriatic Sea.
Challenges
Challenges
It was a challenge to finish this project during my professional practice because of the amount of work that we had along this professional practice period (Matix portfolio, DMAD projects, Thesis topic selection). I think it will be more interesting to have less paperwork on Matix or at least more simplify; in that way we can focus more on our specific duties of our professional practice. Also, other projects had more priority than this one, so I had to let this one on stand by.
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