Assessment of long-range correlation in animal behavior time series: The temporal pattern of locomotor activity of Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix) and mosquito larva (Culex quinquefasciatus)

Jackelyn M. Kembro, Ana Georgina Flesia, Raquel M. Gleiser, María A. Perillo and Raul H. Marin

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2013, vol. 392, issue 24, 6400-6413

Abstract: Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) is a method that has been frequently used to determine the presence of long-range correlations in human and animal behaviors. However, according to previous authors using statistical model systems, in order to correctly use DFA different aspects should be taken into account such as: (1) the establishment by hypothesis testing of the absence of short term correlation, (2) an accurate estimation of a straight line in the log–log plot of the fluctuation function, (3) the elimination of artificial crossovers in the fluctuation function, and (4) the length of the time series. Taking into consideration these factors, herein we evaluated the presence of long-range correlation in the temporal pattern of locomotor activity of Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix) and mosquito larva (Culex quinquefasciatus). In our study, modeling the data with the general autoregressive integrated moving average (ARFIMA) model, we rejected the hypothesis of short-range correlations (d=0) in all cases. We also observed that DFA was able to distinguish between the artificial crossover observed in the temporal pattern of locomotion of Japanese quail and the crossovers in the correlation behavior observed in mosquito larvae locomotion. Although the test duration can slightly influence the parameter estimation, no qualitative differences were observed between different test durations.

Keywords: Detrended Fluctuation Analysis; Fractal; Animal behavior; Crossovers; Trends (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:392:y:2013:i:24:p:6400-6413

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2013.08.017

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