The Aneris project integrates a variety of marine life support technologies to implement new concepts in operational marine biology.
The ongoing biodiversity crisis could be lost or deeply corrected, even the unknown of much of marine biodiversity. As climate and anthropogenic impacts accelerate their impact on marine systems, biodiversity knowledge integration is urgently needed to assess and monitor marine ecosystems and support appropriate responses that support a sustainable future. Biological observations need to be radically improved to enhance understanding of marine ecosystems and biodiversity under long-term global change and multiple stressors.
However, this is not trivial, as biological properties are more difficult to measure and integrate in comparison with physical or chemical parameters. EU-funded project Aneris proposes implementing the concept of operational marine biology (OMB), understood as a biodiversity information system for systematic and long-term routine measurement of marine and coastal life and its rapid interpretation and dissemination. The OMB information flow is summarized in Figure 1.
Creating a new operational system for marine biology
Achieving a new operational marine biology system is an important goal for the next decade, allowing for a baseline of biological information related to essential biodiversity variables (EBVs) and essential marine variables (EOVs). It also provides important data for marine policy descriptors, particularly the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD).
New equipment and methods designs integrate different types of marine life support technologies: genomics, imaging biooptics, participating science. This technology will be implemented in a joint design framework that includes all relevant stakeholders, academia, industry, civil society and government.
The production of fair operational marine biology data runs on distributed IT infrastructure built from Edge and Cloud Compute nodes and is connected to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
This technology is tested and validated in a variety of case studies, including skin innovations and commercial instruments that are improved in a variety of European research infrastructures: LifeWatch-RERIC, EMSO-RERIC, EMBRC, EURO-BioImaging, and the European Grid Initiative. This project will develop training programs for all involved stakeholders, particularly research infrastructure staff, in particular the operation and use of these new solutions.
Overall, this project proposes to benefit all actors involved in the Quintuple helix framework of innovation and promote innovation and knowledge sharing.
academies with new life observation techniques to be used in research, industries with new technologies and methods to exploit, governments, societies with improved observation systems for decision making, and play a more active role in surveillance of marine species, environments with better conservation policies.
Aneris Network
Aneris utilizes existing networks where different partners coordinate or cooperate.
EMO BON: European Marine Marine Biodiversity Observation Network coordinated by EMBRC. Provides reference measurements for genome-based observations. Medcities 67 Local governments from all coasts in the Mediterranean Basin are connected to the Aneris results. Marine cities connect Aneris with a global network supported by the United Nations of marine science for sustainable development. The Atlantic Network of Intertidal Zone Surveillance provides all sites to validate proposed skin techniques in habitats that are completely different from those explored at Mediterranean sites.
Complementing these networks, the Catalonian Federation of Underwater Activities (FECDAS) is partnering with Aneris to promote participation in a variety of project activities and events. The Federation serves as a volunteer interested in bridges between various small businesses related to the blue economy (such as diving clubs, snorkel guides) and engaging in Aneris’ participatory technology. Fecdas explains a variety of technologies and is involved in training activities that both small and medium-sized businesses and volunteers enhance the networking and engagement events planned for the project.
Figure 3 shows an example of a pipeline of various techniques proposed in skin. In combination with methods of identifying the region of interest (ROI), various advanced imaging techniques for automatic removal and color correction can provide a final image of each organism identified in one image. This can facilitate and significantly improve the process of reporting and verifying citizen station observations, and promote a significant increase in participation from volunteers.
Aneris’s first results
One of the first results from Aneris was the integration of the community of practice for volunteer reporting in the first pilot study around the Catalonian coast. As an initial result, the marine biodiversity dataset achieved over 100,000 validated observations in the first year of the project (2023), as reported in news from the Institute of Marine Science. Currently, there are over 250.000 verified observations in the dataset.
This vast number of observations have been achieved as a combination of participatory technologies, particularly Minka observation platforms, providing dedicated services for joint reporting and verification, and engagement strategies have been developed and improved in the project. The proposed engagement strategy is to view citizen science projects as collaboration between multiple stakeholders and ensure long-term volunteer engagement. These stakeholders include volunteers, but also new roles, such as enabling communities to act as bridges between different communities (volunteers, academia, small businesses). In this pilot study, the role of community activation is carried out through Catalonian underwater activities (FECDAS), linking diving clubs and various small and medium-sized enterprises associated with science and tourism and marine viewing activities with volunteers.
The success of this pilot study could provide a high-resolution map in both space and time of species distribution from reported volunteer observations. Furthermore, many images reported by volunteers about the various types allow us to create a good dataset for training AI-based systems for automated verification and identification (Figure 4). This hybrid AI technology is one of the innovative services included in the project.
Pilot research is used as a reference to expand this approach to larger regional regions (the whole Mediterranean Sea and other European seas). The ultimate goal is to produce one of the first operational marine biology data products based on volunteer participation.
This article will also be featured in the 22nd edition of Quarterly Publication.
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