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Thrips (Thysanoptera) identification using artificial neural networks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2008

P. Fedor
Affiliation:
Comenius University, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Ecosozology, Mlynská dolina, 842 15 Bratislava, Slovak Republic
I. Malenovský
Affiliation:
Moravian Museum, Department of Entomology, Hviezdoslavova 29a, 627 00 Brno, Czech Republic
J. Vaňhara*
Affiliation:
Masaryk University, Faculty of Science, Department of Botany and Zoology, Kotlářská 2, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic
W. Sierka
Affiliation:
University of Silesia, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, Department of Zoology, Bankowa 9, 400 07 Katowice, Poland
J. Havel
Affiliation:
Masaryk University, Faculty of Science, Department of Chemistry, Kotlářská 2, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic
*
*Author for correspondence E-mail: vanhara@sci.muni.cz
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Abstract

We studied the use of a supervised artificial neural network (ANN) model for semi-automated identification of 18 common European species of Thysanoptera from four genera: Aeolothrips Haliday (Aeolothripidae), Chirothrips Haliday, Dendrothrips Uzel, and Limothrips Haliday (all Thripidae). As input data, we entered 17 continuous morphometric and two qualitative two-state characters measured or determined on different parts of the thrips body (head, pronotum, forewing and ovipositor) and the sex. Our experimental data set included 498 thrips specimens. A relatively simple ANN architecture (multilayer perceptrons with a single hidden layer) enabled a 97% correct simultaneous identification of both males and females of all the 18 species in an independent test. This high reliability of classification is promising for a wider application of ANN in the practice of Thysanoptera identification.

Information

Type
Research Paper
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press
Figure 0

Table 1. List of examined Thysanoptera specimens.

Figure 1

Fig. 1. Morphometric characters (1–17) used for thrips identification (explanation in table 2).

Figure 2

Table 2. List of characters used for thrips identification.

Figure 3

Fig. 2. Possible ANN architectures for thrips identification. (a) Three-layered MLP (20, 7, 18) used in the paper; (b) four-layered MLP (20, 6, 5, 18).

Figure 4

Table 3. Correlation matrix (Spearman rank correlation coefficient) of morphometric variables over the entire data set (measures missing due to the absence of wings and ocelli pairwise excluded).

Figure 5

Fig. 3. Variability in the thrips data matrix as a function of the number of eigenvalues.

Figure 6

Table 4. Factor analysis: eigenvalues (EV) and related statistics.

Figure 7

Fig. 4. Dependence of RMS error on the number of nodes in the hidden layer for a three-layered MLP architecture.

Figure 8

Table 5. Results of the classification using the final ANN model in an independent test.

Figure 9

Table 6. Summary of the results concerning ANN verification experiments with different sizes of the training set (N=10).

Figure 10

Appendix: Table A1. Minimum and maximum values recorded for characters used for ANN Thysanoptera identification (measurements in μm) for males.

Figure 11

Table A2. Minimum and maximum values recorded for characters used for ANN Thysanoptera identification (measurements in μm) for females.