Animal behavior smartphone app.
Records and maps animal tracks, behaviors and environment.
Free app, with in-app purchases.
Ethology.
If you are studying animal behavior or recording animal tracks in the field, the Behayve app for iPhone and Android could be for you.
Developed by researchers for researchers, Behayve integrates the recording of behaviors, tracks and surrounding environment, offering insight as you go by displaying real-time maps of tracks and the exact positions where behaviors occur.
With or without Internet or GPS, the app determines precise animal positions on the fly, non-invasively, using compass bearing and range in conjunction with GPS or grid map.
Behayve in a nutshell.
Configuration.
Behayve is, above all, configurable to your needs. It’s designed to support a wide range of studies of terrestrial and marine species. You can define your own ethogram with behaviors, constellations, roles, modifiers, data items, species and more.
Sampling modes.
Choose from focal, scan, behavior or ad-lib sampling, or run them all at once. The implementation is based on Jeanne Altmann’s Observational Study of Behavior and Martin & Bateson’s Measuring Behavior.
Roles and modifiers.
Multiple roles and multiple modifiers may be configured for any behavior. Behaviors may be instantaneous events or prolonged states. A collection of states may be configured to be mutually exclusive.
Insight.
While observing, you can get additional insight by viewing a terrain map of action to date, pinpointing the exact location of behaviors and tracks. Tap on an observation to pop up its associated timestamped data. A predictive function can help locate animals that have gone out of sight.
Review and correction.
At any time during observations, or later, you can rapidly review and alter your recorded observations, including your voice notes or comments. Calculated data such as latitude/longitude will be adjusted appropriately if necessary.
Collaboration and citizen science.
Behayve facilitates data sharing between team members, be they colleagues or citizen scientists. A merge function allows onboarding of data from team members at the same or different locations. Your distributed configuration can be locked down to prevent modification. Photo, video and sound examples of behaviors and species may be consulted during sampling.
GIS integration.
With no effort, transfer any amount of observational data to GIS systems such as ArcGIS, QGIS and KML-based systems like Google Earth, preserving its structure — this can be a really enormous labor saver. View 2D or 3D tracks and behaviors. Click on an observation to display its associated data. Spreadsheet export is of course available too.
Icons for photos can be automatically placed at the position they were taken, even from cameras without GPS.
Reliability.
Your data is retained in a rock-solid onboard database immune from power failure and other glitches. Structured data can be exported to the safety of the cloud (or to a laptop) and the entire database can be backed up to the cloud or laptop. In using prerelease versions over four years in Living Ocean’s humpback whale study, we have never lost data.
Coding convenience.
Behayve is intuitive and straightforward to use. Its pocket size is a winner. Automated features make data recording easy, fast and reliable. For example, to record compass bearing and elevation angle, simply position an animal in the crosshairs. To record range, just point and shoot a handheld wireless rangefinder (not supplied) or enter manually. Behaviors may be grouped into constellations to speed recording.
Aerial survey or theodolite.
Choose from terrestrial, marine or aerial operating modes (Roving 2D, Roving 3D, Theodolite or Aerial). For aerial surveys, simply position an animal in the crosshairs and Behayve records its latitude and longitude. Or enter bearing and azimuth manually.
GNSS and differential GPS.
Via wireless connections, achieve sub-meter positioning accuracy using handheld or fixed units (not supplied) such as the Arrow 100, sensed automatically by Behayve. Or simply rely on the iPhone’s built-in GPS hardware.
With GNSS devices, improve positioning accuracy under canopy, harnessing the combined forces of GPS, Glonass, Galileo, Beidou and other satellite constellations.
Hook up your gear.
Connect wirelessly to supported external devices using a serial-to-wireless adapter. For example, at sea, continuously log water temperature and depth from the ship’s chartplotter. Talk to us about connecting your own unique devices.
Reviews
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