Tracking tunnel processing protocol

This protocol describes how to digitally extract a measure of rodent activity from tracking tunnels based on the amount of area of the tracking card that exhibits rodent (or target) footprints). Tracking tunnels are more commonly used as presence/absence devices, with the standard measure being the proportion of tunnel cards in a network that exhibit target species footprints. The activity index derived from the attach protocol provides more fine-scale activity metrics, as the intensity with with each card has been tracked (rather than just whether or not the card has been tracked) is used as the monitoring metric. Tracking tunnels are a standard monitoring tool for numerous invasive species including rats, mice, possums and stoats. They are baited with non-toxic lure, in this case, a dollop of peanut butter. Tracking tunnels were deployed for a continuous one-month period and were the collected and processed digitally. For information about tracking tunnel deployment and use see associated research article.Note that the protocol for processing tracking tunnels and chew cards (the other protocol in this collection) use different software, as tracking tunnels in this study exhibited a large amount of small insect footprints, so converting images to binary images over-inflated level of activity. As such, a manual counting method was used.本规程详述了如何基于追踪卡片（"tracking card"）上啮齿动物（或目标物种）足迹所占的区域面积，从追踪隧道（"tracking tunnel"）中数字化提取啮齿动物活动量指标。 追踪隧道通常被用作存在/缺失监测装置，其通用衡量标准为某一监测网络中出现目标物种足迹的追踪卡片占比。由本规程推导得到的活动指数可提供更精细的活动量评估指标，因其将每张卡片的追踪强度（而非仅判断卡片是否被追踪）作为监测指标。 追踪隧道是大鼠、小鼠、负鼠及白鼬等多种入侵物种的标准监测工具。本次研究使用无毒诱饵进行布设，该诱饵为一勺花生酱。追踪隧道持续部署为期一个月，随后完成回收并开展数字化处理。有关追踪隧道的部署与使用细节，请参阅相关研究论文。 需注意，本研究中处理追踪隧道的规程，与本合集中另一项针对咀嚼卡片（"chew card"）的处理规程，所使用的软件存在差异。原因在于本研究的追踪隧道图像中存在大量小型昆虫足迹，若将图像转换为二值图像（"binary image"）会过度高估活动量水平，因此本次研究采用了人工计数法。