Artificial Intelligence as a Useful Tool in Behavioural Studies
A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal System and Management".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2025 | Viewed by 724
Special Issue Editors
2. Aalborg Zoo, Mølleparkvej 63, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark
Interests: mammals; drones; remote sensing; population biology; genomics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: mammals; drones; population biology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Animal monitoring is essential for understanding behaviour and social dynamics. Ethologists utilise focal animal sampling to collect detailed information on individual animals, which helps measure activity budgets and shape conservation strategies. This approach is particularly important for studying captive animals, as their ability to display natural behaviours is vital for their welfare and reintroduction success. The rapid advancement of subdisciplines within artificial intelligence, such as machine learning (ML), presents a unique opportunity for fields related to behavioural sciences. The growing availability of user-friendly ML software allows behavioural scientists to enhance the value and reproducibility of their research findings while also reducing their workload. The automated recording and quantification of behavioural traits create numerous possibilities for comparative studies, enabling robust quantitative conclusions. Consequently, there is an urgent need to integrate artificial intelligence into behavioural sciences for both in situ and ex situ studies of wild and captive populations. Furthermore, the application of AI techniques will facilitate quantitative assessments of animal welfare, potentially attracting researchers in the animal production field.
The aim of this Special Issue is to gather papers, including original research articles and review papers, short communications, perspectives, and technical notes, that provide insights into the application of artificial intelligence techniques in behavioural studies. By incorporating machine learning tools, this Special Issue will facilitate the precise quantification of the duration, speed, and direction of the behavioural traits being examined.
This Special Issue welcomes manuscripts that link together the following themes:
- Potentiality and perspectives of machine learning techniques for behavioural studies;
- Use of machine learnings techniques in behavioural science (with potential automatisation using machine learning techniques);
- Synergistic effects of the use of machine learnings techniques with more conventional behavioural studies techniques;
We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.
Prof. Dr. Cino Pertoldi
Dr. Sussie Pagh
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- machine learning
- artificial intelligence
- Yolo
- DeepLabCut
- SLEAP
- Create ML
- in situ conservation
- ex situ conservation
- behavioural studies
- wildlife biology
- animal production
- ethograms
- time budget
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