Slashdot Mirror


AI Identifies Heat-Resistant Coral Reefs In Indonesia (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Between 2014 and 2017, the world's reefs endured the worst coral bleaching event in history, as the cyclical El Nino climate event combined with anthropogenic warming to cause unprecedented increases in water temperature. But the June survey, funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's family foundation, found the Sulawesi reefs were surprisingly healthy. In fact they were in better condition than when they were originally surveyed in 2014 -- a surprise for British scientist Dr Emma Kennedy, who led the research team.

A combination of 360-degree imaging tech and Artificial Intelligence (AI) allowed scientists to gather and analyze more than 56,000 images of shallow water reefs. Over the course of a six-week voyage, the team deployed underwater scooters fitted with 360 degree cameras that allowed them to photograph up to 1.5 miles of reef per dive, covering a total of 1487 square miles in total. Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia then used cutting edge AI software to handle the normally laborious process of identifying and cataloguing the reef imagery. Using the latest Deep Learning tech, they 'taught' the AI how to detect patterns in the complex contours and textures of the reef imagery and thus recognize different types of coral and other reef invertebrates. Once the AI had shown between 400 and 600 images, it was able to process images autonomously.
The Ocean Agency has published a short 2-minute video on YouTube about the Coral Triangle survey.

2 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Don't confuse bleaching with dying by raymorris · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just don't confuse coral "bleaching" with dying. It's normal for coral to "bleach" (expel their algae) every few years, and there can be dozens of different causes.

    Around 40% of the time, after the bleaching event a different composition of algae takes the place of the expelled algae, about 50% of the time the same type of algae re-colonizes the polyps, and about 10% of it dies.

  2. biggest reef... by johnjones · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Australia has a pretty big reef and what have the australian gov done with 444million dollars ?

      awarded the largest ever non-profit grant to an organisation with six staff members "without due diligence, without a proper tender process, without them even requesting it"

    Great Barrier Reef Foundation then took big minning exec's a on snorkelling tour

    contact Mr Frydenberg here :

    https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=FKL