Collecting critically endangered cliff plants using a drone-based sampling manipulator

Abstract

Kauaʻi, an island within the Hawaiʻi archipelago, is home of a unique flora that contains 250 single-island endemic plant species. Threats have led to a significant population decrease where 97% of these plant species are now listed as endangered, critically endangered, or extinct. Vertical cliff habitats on Kauaʻi work as refugia to protect plants from their stressors. However, this habitat makes conservation work particularly difficult, forcing scientists, and botanists to use risky and time-consuming methods such as abseiling to access remote plant populations. Here we present the Mamba, the first aerial system capable of sampling plants on cliffs. This system is operated by two pilots and consists of an actively controlled platform suspended by a long cable under a lifting drone. Eleven otherwise inaccessible samples from five critically endangered species were collected during the first field trials on Kauaʻi Island. The samples are currently surviving in nurseries, demonstrating that the Mamba can be used to complete the conservation life cycle for organisms located in difficult areas, from location to collection, then cultivation and outplanting.

The conservation impact of botanical drones: Documenting and collecting rare plants from vertical cliffs and other hard‐to‐reach areas

“…Sometimes target plants are found on areas of cliff that are prohibitively difficult to access, even using ropes and rappelling techniques. This challenge has given rise to new UAS‐based remote collecting tools (La Vigne et al., 2022; Perroy et al., 2022). For this study, we deployed the Outreach Robotics Mamba (Outreach Robotics, Sherbrooke, Canada), a robotic collecting arm suspended under a larger carrying drone.…”

“…For this study, we deployed the Outreach Robotics Mamba (Outreach Robotics, Sherbrooke, Canada), a robotic collecting arm suspended under a larger carrying drone. This mechanism was developed specifically for sampling plants in inaccessible areas or growing on vertical cliffs, with feedback from our team and field testing in the Hawaiian Islands (La Vigne et al., 2022).…”

“…Botanists rappelled to sites identified by UAS survey to make conservation collections and document the flora of these intact cliff habitats (Figure 6b). For some sites, our team has utilized the Mamba (Figure 7b), a remote plant collection platform attached to UAS (La Vigne et al, 2022).…”

“…We thank Outreach Robotics for the collaborative testing of the Mamba on Kauai as reported in La Vigne et al. (2022). To conservation staff at the State of Hawaii—Division of Forestry and Wildlife, the Plant Extinction Prevention Program and the National Tropical Botanical Garden, we appreciate your hard work and commitment to preventing plant extinction.…”

Ex situ germplasm collections of exceptional species are a vital part of the conservation of Australia's national plant treasures

“…Likewise, if seed production areas create a larger population size than present in the wild, seed availability may increase. Issues that limit seed collection from inaccessible species in EF1b may also be addressed by new technology, for example, the use of drones to collect some tropical or cliff top species that are otherwise inaccessible to collectors (La Vigne et al, 2022).…”