Quantifying animal movement is central to answering numerous research questions in ethology, behavioral ecology, ecophysiology, and neuroscience. Most behavioral studies use video recording to observe and track each animal, often for long timescales; these experiments can produce a vast amount of image data, which can be very time-consuming to analyze. A variety of tracking software are available to help researchers track subjects and analyze data…each one with its own strengths and weaknesses.
In a new Review, Veronica Panadeiro and colleagues searched the literature for open-source, freely available software published from 2008 until 2020. They identified 28 animal tracking software, and compared their strengths and weaknesses in the tracking pipeline to guide researchers in selecting the software that might best suit their experiment.
