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Plankton Portal Enlists Citizen Scientists to Help Classify Strange Oceanic Creatures


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    Plankton

    Photograph of a dense aggregation of hydromedusa Solmaris rhodoloma found off the coast of Southern California, October 2010, taken using the In Situ Ichthyoplankton Imaging System (ISIIS) on board the NOAA R/V Bell M. Shimada. Each medusa is about 2 cm long. Photo credit: Bob Cowen / University of Miami & Oregon State University.

    A new online citizen science project called Plankton Portal provides a user experience like none other—exploring the open ocean from the comfort of your own home. Anyone will be able to virtually dive hundreds of feet deep and observe the undisturbed ocean and myriad animals that inhabit the Earth’s last frontier.

    Researchers from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science collaborated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Science Foundation (NSF), and developers at Zooniverse.org on the site.

    As part of the project, volunteers are being enlisted to classify millions of underwater images that will help facilitate the study of plankton diversity, distribution, and behavior in the open ocean. Plankton Portal was developed under the leadership of Robert K. Cowen, emeritus professor of marine biology and fisheries at the Rosenstiel School and current director of Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center. Research associate Cedric Guigand and marine biology and fisheries graduate students Jessica Luo and Adam Greer also helped develop the project.

    Millions of plankton images are taken by the In Situ Ichthyoplankton Imaging System (ISIIS), a unique underwater robot engineered at the University of Miami in collaboration with Charles Cousin at Bellamare LLC and funded by NOAA and NSF.

    ISIIS operates as an ocean scanner that casts the shadow of tiny and transparent oceanic creatures onto a high-resolution digital sensor at high frequency. So far, ISIIS has been used in several oceans around the world to detect the presence of larval fish, small crustaceans, and jellyfish in ways never before possible. This new technology can help yield a wealth of information, from how plankton disperse, interact, and survive in the marine environment to the physical and biological factors that influence the plankton community.

    “ISIIS gives us a new view on plankton, enabling us to see them in their natural setting, where they occur, what other organisms are nearby, even their orientation,” explained Cowen.

    The dataset used for Plankton Portal comes from a project from the Southern California Bight, a coastal and offshore area where Cowen’s team imaged plankton over three days in the fall of 2010. “In three days we collected data that would take us more than three years to analyze,” said graduate student Luo.

    “With the volume of data that ISIIS generates, it is impossible for us to individually classify every image by hand, which is why we are exploring different options for image analysis, from automatic image recognition software to crowd-sourcing to citizen scientists,” said Cowen.

    “A computer will probably be able to tell the difference between major classes of organisms such as a shrimp versus a jellyfish,” explained Luo. “But to distinguish different species within an order or family, that is still best done by the human eye.”

    Volunteer citizen scientists can assist by going to www.planktonportal.org. A field guide is provided, and the simple tutorial is easy to understand. Cowen and the science team will monitor the discussion boards and answer any questions about the classifications, organisms, and the research they are conducting.

     

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