Systems and methods of monitoring social interactions in a group of organisms over a period of at least 24 hours in a semi-natural environment

A system of monitoring social interactions among a plurality of model organisms, comprising:

• an imaging system which capturing a sequence of images of a plurality of unique visual markers each of another of a plurality of model organisms in a monitored space divided to a plurality of spatial segments;
• an image processing module which analyses said sequence of images to identify in which of said plurality of segments each said unique visual marker is located during each of a plurality of temporal frames of a period;
• and
• a characterizing module which calculates at least one spatiotemporal model according to said identification and characterizes a social behaviour of at least some of said plurality of model organisms from at least one interaction among at least some of said plurality of model organisms by an analysis of said at least one spatiotemporal model.

A method of monitoring social interactions among a plurality of model organisms, comprising:

• recording spatiotemporal data of a plurality of model organisms in a monitored space during of a period;
• analyzing said spatiotemporal data to identify a plurality of interactions between members of each of a plurality of subgroups of said plurality of model organisms;
• calculating a plurality of entropy measures each for interactions in another of said plurality of subgroups;
• and
• characterizing a social behaviour of at least some of said plurality of model organisms according to said plurality of entropy measures.