AbstractTemporal data is ubiquitous in ecology and ecologists often face the challenge of accurately differentiating these data into predefined classes, such as biological entities or ecological states. The usual approach transforms the temporal data into static predictors of the classes. However, recent deep learning techniques can perform the classification using raw time series, eliminating subjective and resource-consuming data transformation steps, and potentially improving classification results. We present a general approach for time series classification that considers multiple deep learning algorithms and illustrate it with three case studies: i) insect species identification from wingbeat spectrograms; ii) species distribution modelling from climate time series and iii) the classification of phenological phases from continuous meteorological data. The deep learning approach delivered ecologically sensible and accurate classifications, proving its potential for wide applicability across subfields of ecology. We recommend deep learning as an alternative to techniques requiring the transformation of time series data.
Classification of Indian Classical Music with Time-Series Matching using Deep Learning
