A recent scientific survey off the coast of Sulawesi in Indonesia suggests that some shallow-water corals could also be less at risk of global warming than previously thought.
But a June study funded by the family foundation of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen found that Sulawesi’s reefs are surprisingly healthy.
In fact, the reefs haven’t deteriorated significantly because the original survey in 2014 – which got here as a surprise to British scientist Dr Emma Kennedy, who led a research team from the UK, US, Australia, Indonesia and Trinidad.
“After several depressing years as a coral reef scientist and witnessing the worst-ever global coral bleaching event, it is incredibly encouraging to experience reefs like this,” she said. Guardian.
“This means we still have time to save some coral reefs through science-based targeted conservation efforts.”
Indonesia is situated in the center Coral Triangle – home to the world’s highest level of marine biodiversity. The reefs here support more species than all the Caribbean, making this bioregion of particular interest to reef resilience researchers.
The combination of 360-degree imaging technology and artificial intelligence (AI) enabled scientists to gather and analyze greater than 56,000 images of shallow-water reefs.
During the six-week cruise, the team used underwater jet skis equipped with 360-degree cameras to photograph as much as 2.5 miles of reef per dive, for a complete area of 1,487 square miles.
Scientists from the University of Queensland in Australia then used cutting-edge AI software to handle the often labor-intensive strategy of identifying and cataloging reef images.
Using the most recent deep learning technology, they ‘taught’ the AI the way to detect patterns within the complex contours and textures of reef images and thereby recognize various kinds of corals and other reef invertebrates.
When the AI showed 400 to 600 images, it was in a position to process them autonomously.
Says Dr. Kennedy, “using artificial intelligence to quickly analyze coral images has greatly improved the efficiency of our work – what would take a coral reef scientist 10 to quarter-hour now takes a machine a couple of seconds.”
Research in Sulawesi is a component of the project 50 Reefs Initiativeone in every of the important thing projects specializing in the gathering and evaluation of underlying data, established last 12 months with the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Tiffany Co. Foundation. and Paul G. Allen Philanthropies
BBC Focus reports that studies of those heat-resistant reefs have given researchers hope that some corals can survive the harmful effects of human-induced climate change and will restore adversely affected reefs if we manage to stabilize ocean temperatures in the longer term.
The results of the Sulawesi study will help scientists and conservationists develop coral conservation programs in other parts of the world. With roughly thirty years left to avoid wasting a crucial global ecosystem from extinction, progress is desperately needed.
