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What emerging technologies can be used to help us more quickly identify new species?
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70% of plants with anti-cancer characteristics can only be found in the tropical rainforest, yet less than 10% of tropical rainforest plant species and .1% of animal species have been examined for their chemical and medicinal value.
At the same time, the UN’s 50-year study - completed this month by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services - demonstrates that nature’s decline worldwide is unprecedented and that species extinction rates are accelerating. Its findings demonstrate that the world’s massive loss of biodiversity is “eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”
What emerging technologies can be used to help us more quickly identify new species?
Share any links, examples, or ideas that you have!
At the same time, the UN’s 50-year study - completed this month by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services - demonstrates that nature’s decline worldwide is unprecedented and that species extinction rates are accelerating. Its findings demonstrate that the world’s massive loss of biodiversity is “eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”
What emerging technologies can be used to help us more quickly identify new species?
Share any links, examples, or ideas that you have!
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Now, the technology known as LiDAR (light detection and ranging) that uses super fast laser pulses that can indeed penetrate to the ground level (it is used to identify archeological ruins beneath dense forest/jungle cover) but does so by digitally 'eliminating' the vegetation cover (simplistically, by using a tuned laser system that 'extracts' anything green from the image). Since most plants are green, this poses a problem: how to detect ground plants from the air and also by-pass the forest canopy that obscures them?
Perhaps a 'one-two' punch' type tuned laser system (Lidar + Spectrometry/spectrography) might be usable, where the first (lidar) laser pulses by-pass the canopy and a second (broadly 'tuned') laser pulse (stream) acts as a spectrometer or spectral 'probe' (e.g., Raman spectroscopy, or, Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman spectrometry, known as CARS) of the ground level vegetation (to identify new plant species or potential sites of possible new species). Lidar systems are now being mounted on drones for close-in, more precise, mapping purposes.
All that said, any type of spectrometric /spectrographic tech may likely only be usable on the ground ("close up" as it were) due to the much smaller size of plants verses tree top/canopies. Further, precision tuning would be paramount as no doubt many species of plants will have similar (or overlapping) spectral signatures. This is why, in a separate forum post, I recommended use of portable DNA sequencers (e.g., MinION, or, Nanopore technology), which could be augmented by wi-fi capability (provided by aerial wi-fi-transmitting balloons or drones connected to the an Internet/cloud database of plant DNA sequences). Cellular networks could also be employed (in conjunction with a camera-spectrography app) -- assuming that cellular microwave transmissions can reach into remote forested areas.
Lastly, I also recommended (as several others have) forging contacts with indigenous peoples/tribes (known as "stakeholders") to both identify their traditional medicinal plants, and, locate areas rich in plant diversity. Cultivating this type of cooperative relationship (in which their native land is protected and their way of life is preserved as much as possible, from outside interference) is paramount. This is a "low tech" approach that should never be over-looked in our rush to find and apply new technological solutions.
These would be much more capable in their observation and chemical and biological analysis. Various methods of movement could be employed depending on the environment (e.g. wheels, tracks, crawling, climbing, flying, and diving).
Regarding indigenous communities - we absolutely agree. Indigenous communities are our present-day and future stewards of the forest.
We are very intrigued by the insights that can be gained by high-resolution layered data (i.e. Lidar + Spectroscopy). I believe the example you are referencing is from Greg Asner and the Carnegie Airborne Observatory mapping the Peruvian Amazon. It was very inspirational work, and it has us questioning - what else is possible?
In addition to @Kathleen_Hamrick's questions - have either of you (or anyone else in the community) seen any examples of integrated remote-sensing technologies being used for "close up" observation? UAV mounted, handheld, rover mounted? Which combinations could have the greatest value?
The use of GIS is certainly valuable, but its use assumes prior investigation /exploration/mapping of the terrain (e.g., dense forest) to some degree. If the terrain variation (i.e., different habitats) is encoded/defined in a given area, this could provide cues as to where to look for new species. Also, if prior expeditions to an area resulted in one or more discoveries of medicinal or rare plants, then this information could be quite useful. But absent any prior mapping of these kinds, GIS technology would seem only to be useful AFTER a terrain has been explored or had its flora 'inventoried' (whether via remote sensing or field study).
As for IoT ...this is the hot topic these days but I am not sure how useful in would be in this context (apart from centralizing in situ sensor networks...which assumes we have targeted {identified] something already -- presumably via remote sensing tech).
Please give practical or theoretical examples of how IoT would be used in this context.
Good points.
Projects might use in situ sensor networks for their IoT, and/or mobile IoT (like the rover XPRIZE idea I suggested). More broadly there are lots of technologies that already exist to collect data and more are emerging. A key aspect for success will be data compatibility and the need for a common standard*.
* Have you heard the old joke? "Standards are a wonderful thing, and we should have lots of them" [too many] ;-)