Scoring thermal limits in small insects using open-source, computer assisted motion detection

Scoring large amounts of thermal tolerance traits live or with recorded video can be time consuming and susceptible to investigator bias, and as with many physiological measurements, there can be trade-offs between accuracy and throughput. Recent studies show that particle tracking is a viable alternative to manually scoring videos, although it may not detect subtle movements, and many of the software options are proprietary and costly. In this study, we present a novel strategy for automated scoring of thermal tolerance videos by inferring motor activity with motion detection using an open-source Python command line application called DIME (Detector of Insect Motion Endpoint). We apply our strategy to both dynamic and static thermal tolerance assays, and our results indicate that DIME can accurately measure thermal acclimation responses, generally agrees with visual estimates of thermal limits, and can significantly increase the throughput over manual methods., Data is collected from observing videos from bioassays which are scored by humans or by an algorithm using the proposed tool DIME., DIME open source can be found at https://github.com/fernan9/DIME, # Pixel change dataset

Abbreviations
CTMAX = Critical thermal maximaCTMAX
CTMIN = Critical thermal minima
CCRT = Chill coma recovery time
HKDT = Heat knock down time
IM = Individual Median
OT = Optimal Threshold
CP = Change Point
This dataset contains the raw data used to validate automatic scoring methodologies for thermal limit bioassays in small insects. Apart from the main insect thermal performance data, we include an inter-observer dataset comparing three human estimates. Finally, a last dataset containing computer and human CTmax estimates of six additonal species is also provided. The original videos used for each scoring are also included. Four bioassays were evaluated: Critical thermal maxima (CTMAX), Critical thermal minima (CTMIN), Chill coma recovey time (CCRT), and Heat knock down time (HKDT).

## Description of the data and file structure

## Directory: /Computer\_estimates

Computer and visual estimates of each bioassay in files ending in \"\_dataset.csv\".
Columns: \"well...