2024-04-29 13:37:39
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The oceans play a key role in supporting life: they are inevitably linked to biodiversity, climate, human well-being and health. In the current context of climate crisis, they have the capacity to absorb up to 31% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and produce more than 50% of the oxygen we breathe. They are the true “lungs” of the world.
From its surface, naturalists such as Charles Darwin explored life on Earth and with the arrival of the first submarines, scientists were able to see the ocean floor up close for the first time. Currently, projects that combine different technologies, such as artificial intelligence and unmanned vehicles, allow us to identify species in real time and almost automatically, warn of what is happening at great depths or capture and analyze the garbage we dump into the sea. .
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“Biological observations must radically improve to contribute to our understanding of marine ecosystems and biodiversity under multiple stress factors and long-term global changes,” Jaume Piera, from the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC), tells SINC.
Piera is part of the ANERIS project, a European initiative that wants to launch a network of Operational Marine Biology, “systematic and long-term routine measurements of oceanic and coastal life, and their rapid interpretation and dissemination.” They track everything from bacteria to large cetaceans.
To do this, they have different technologies, such as the CytoSubs submersibles, which collect images that analyze microorganisms and particles in the water, such as phytoplankton; or the MINKA application, in which any citizen can contribute their images. “At the moment a pilot test has been carried out on the Catalan coast in which more than 174,000 observations of more than 2,800 different species have already been reported,” explains the ICM-CSIC scientist.
This work is especially relevant to detect species that are difficult to observe or for the appearance of invasive ones in their first stages of settlement. “Its early detection allows us to generate alarms to activate eradication plans,” says the expert. The idea is that ANERIS collects big data for decision-making in ocean policies, particularly within the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.
Live cameras on reefs and fauna
So that this and other initiatives can be possible, permanent platforms are installed to provide power to the scientific instruments. One of them is OBSESSED4 km from the coast of Vilanova i la Geltrú, which integrates sensors and video cameras that store information, as well as instruments such as seismometers, a hydrophone or a buoy 40 meters from the observatory with a video surveillance camera and weather station with GPS.
This observatory is complemented with data collected by vehicles from the projects with which it collaborates. “In addition to deploying two state-of-the-art equipment with ANERIS – of which there are very few installed around the world –, we are also a testing platform for the BITER and PLOME project, in which the CSIC, the universities of Girona are involved , Balearic Islands, Polytechnic of Madrid and the company Iqua Robotics,” Joaquín Del Río Fernández, professor at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and director of OBSEA, told SINC.
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The platform applies artificial intelligence techniques to analyze photos and videos of macrofauna, mainly fish. Likewise, it has three live cameras in which you can view the artificial reefs of Sea battlea project to create new materials for marine regeneration structures.
“There are very few underwater observatories like ours in Europe. In Spain there is only the Canary Islands Ocean Platform (PLOCAN), but it is aimed at generating marine energy,” says Del Río Fernández.
Latest generation vehicles
For its part, the University of Girona has been working on autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) for 25 years. They are the institution that leads PLOME, a platform that monitors and maps marine ecosystems with artificial intelligence and cutting-edge technology.
“We are a reference laboratory on a national and international scale. In this project we develop new navigation techniques so that the vehicles work in conjunction with fixed stations on the seabed,” Marc Carreras Pérez, professor at the Catalan university, tells SINC.
It is about achieving autonomous robots that collaborate with the station, can be parked to charge batteries and remain submerged for weeks. “These experiments will be carried out during this summer of 2024,” details Carreras Pérez.
Jacopo Aguzzi, principal investigator at PLOME, adds: “We are working with a multidisciplinary scientific team, from fishery biologists to engineers and software programmers. “We are coordinators of DIGI4ECO, an initiative to digitize ecosystems, and of REDRESS, a network of cooperative robotic platforms to remotely restore marine ecosystems and monitor them,” he continues.
Video camera images allow them to count individuals by different species in an automated manner by AI and, by adding lasers and sound-based vision systems (optoacoustic methods), they determine the size of each animal.
“We can see the biomass of different species and report on the richness of an ecosystem. The images also allow us to see their interactions and behaviors, to learn more about the structure of the marine food web,” emphasizes Aguzzi.
Marine litter assessment
Another of the great challenges for experts in marine biology and new technologies is the management of waste that accumulates in the sea. In the Canary Islands, on the Banco de La Concepción, an underwater mountain located 75 kilometers north of the island of Lanzarote, scientists from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) installed a remote-controlled towed vehicle to make recordings of the garbage accumulated between 2009 and 2017. .
In total, they recorded 56 transects (film archives of the ecosystem) and their results, which have just been published by the magazine Environmental Pollution, show that more than 80% of the waste located by the robot was plastic, mainly fishing lines, remains of ropes, lines or longlines. .
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“In areas like those in this study, the morphology of the mountain, which abruptly faces the dominant current, creates an island effect that produces a greater accumulation of garbage in shaded or backwater areas,” Pablo Martín tells SINC. -Sosa, from the IEO.
Of the trash found, only 5% damaged any individual coral or sponge. This area is a Site of Community Importance and Special Bird Protection Zone, where it is common to find cold water coral reefs, gorgonians forming true forests or colonies of large sponges. In addition, it is the habitat of the bottlenose dolphin and the development of juvenile loggerhead sea turtles.
We will never know what books or letters Darwin would have written if he had had access to these underwater technologies, but we can assure you that new communication and data processing systems will revolutionize knowledge and conservation of the submerged world.
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