Fractal characterization of three-dimensional zooplankton swimming trajectories

Behaviour-dependent predation risk in swimming zooplankters

“…Fractal and multifractal properties of zooplankton motion can be extremely useful in depicting specific features of the swimming behaviour of these organisms (e.g., Seuront et al 2004a, b). As a proxy of track convolution, the three-dimensional fractal dimension D 3D (Uttieri et al 2005) was evaluated for each trajectory through a box-counting approach (for further details on the methodologies, please refer to Uttieri et al 2005 and.…”

Hydrocarbon Contamination and the Swimming Behavior of the Estuarine Copepod Eurytemora affinis

“…The application of fractals to crustaceans behavioral ecology in general (Coughlin et al, 1982;Bundy et al, 1983;Seuront, 2006;Seuront et al, 2004a-d;Uttieri et al, 2005Uttieri et al, , 2007Uttieri et al, , 2008Seuront & Vincent, 2008;Dur et al, 2010Dur et al, , 2011aZiarek et al, 2011), and to crustacean ecotoxicology in particular (Shimizu et al, 2002;Seuront, 2010aSeuront, ,b, 2011apresent work) is, however, still in its infancy. Further work is needed to entangle the fractal complexity of behavioral properties and to generalize the use of fractal-based approaches to stress assessment in marine invertebrates.…”

“…Some of the fractal dimensions estimated for Daphnia magna swimming paths under conditions of chemical contaminations are, however, higher than the upper theoretical limit D = 2 (see Shimizu et al, (2002), their figures 4 and 5), which questions the relevance of their results. More generally, the application of fractals to cladocerans behavioral ecology and ecotoxicology is still far too limited (Shimizu et al, 2002;Seuront et al, 2004a,c,d;Uttieri et al, 2005;Ziarek et al, 2011) to allow reliable conclusions. In contrast to the nature of alterations in swimming speed (i.e.…”

“…In contrast to standard behavioral metrics such as turning angle and net-to-gross displacement ratio (NGDR), fractal analysis and the related fractal dimension D have the desirable properties to be independent of measurement scale and to be very sensitive to subtle behavioral changes that may be undetectable to other behavioral variables (Seuront & Leterme, 2007;Seuront et al, 2004a,b;Seuront &Vincent, 2008;Seuront, 2010bSeuront, , 2011b. Fractal analysis has been applied to describe the complexity of zooplankton and ichtyoplankton swimming paths (Coughlin et al, 1992;Bundy et al, 1993;Dowling et al, 2000;Seuront et al, 2004a,b,c;Uttieri et al, 2005Uttieri et al, , 2007Uttieri et al, , 2008Seuront, 2006Seuront, , 2010bSeuront, , 2011aSeuront &Vincent, 2008, Ziarek et al, 2011. The fractal dimensions of E. affinis swimming paths were estimated using two different, but conceptually similar, methods to ensure the reliability of fractal dimension estimates; see e.g.…”

Fractal landscape method: an alternative approach to measuring area-restricted searching behavior

“…In our study, D should be considered as an area-filling index, and is therefore particularly suitable for the analysis of searching behavior. Fractal dimension is classically used in studies interested in plane or volume filling measurements (Chmel et al, 2005;Kim and Kim, 2005;Phattaralerphong and Sinoquet, 2005;Uttieri et al, 2005). A recent study using fractal dimension in threedimensions highlighted the subtle differences between degree of convolution and fractal dimension (Uttieri et al, 2005).…”