The Hierarchic Treatment of Marine Ecological Information from Spatial Networks of Benthic Platforms

Abstract

Measuring biodiversity simultaneously in different locations, at different temporal scales, and over wide spatial scales is of strategic importance for the improvement of our understanding of the functioning of marine ecosystems and for the conservation of their biodiversity. Monitoring networks of cabled observatories, along with other docked autonomous systems (e.g., Remotely Operated Vehicles [ROVs], Autonomous Underwater Vehicles [AUVs], and crawlers), are being conceived and established at a spatial scale capable of tracking energy fluxes across benthic and pelagic compartments, as well as across geographic ecotones. At the same time, optoacoustic imaging is sustaining an unprecedented expansion in marine ecological monitoring, enabling the acquisition of new biological and environmental data at an appropriate spatiotemporal scale. At this stage, one of the main problems for an effective application of these technologies is the processing, storage, and treatment of the acquired complex ecological information. Here, we provide a conceptual overview on the technological developments in the multiparametric generation, storage, and automated hierarchic treatment of biological and environmental information required to capture the spatiotemporal complexity of a marine ecosystem. In doing so, we present a pipeline of ecological data acquisition and processing in different steps and prone to automation. We also give an example of population biomass, community richness and biodiversity data computation (as indicators for ecosystem functionality) with an Internet Operated Vehicle (a mobile crawler). Finally, we discuss the software requirements for that automated data processing at the level of cyber-infrastructures with sensor calibration and control, data banking, and ingestion into large data portals.

ENDURUNS: An Integrated and Flexible Approach for Seabed Survey Through Autonomous Mobile Vehicles

“…A large scale mapping survey can produce a large amount of data in short time [10]. This amount represents an exceptional technological challenge for data processing, storage, and transfer on board of AUVs.…”

“…Deep water exploration and new data collection in this domain are of special interest to provide new insights into a variety of geological and ecological processes [3]. For instance, there has been relevant industrial effort spent into deep water hydrocarbons exploration [6], offshore carbon capture and storage [7,8], exploitation of deep-sea mineral resources, or seafloor fibre-optic cables positioning for telecommunications purposes, as well as for seafloor observatories [9,10]. At the same time, political drivers push toward the implementation of new coordinated marine monitoring programmes for establishing, preserving and restoring relevant Marine Protected Areas as stated in the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (2008/56/EC).…”

Towards Naples Ecological REsearch for Augmented Observatories (NEREA): The NEREA-Fix Module, a Stand-Alone Platform for Long-Term Deep-Sea Ecosystem Monitoring

“…All the sensors incorporated within the platform will operate at high frequency (e.g., making measurements each 30 min; see [30,55] for a procedural example) with multiparametric environmental data acquisition carried out over consecutive years, covering seasonal reproductive periods, periodic movements and migrations, and molting processes [56]. The NEREA SP will be also equipped with an embedded processing unit (e.g., Jetson TX2 Module) for performing simple data analysis tasks interpreting the content of the acquired data [5,57]. The sensing technology in the NEREA observatory will be compliant with the Sensor Web Enablement standards [58] and, based on this, intelligent services will be studied and developed for an adaptive management of the data collection [5,59].…”

“…The NEREA SP will be also equipped with an embedded processing unit (e.g., Jetson TX2 Module) for performing simple data analysis tasks interpreting the content of the acquired data [5,57]. The sensing technology in the NEREA observatory will be compliant with the Sensor Web Enablement standards [58] and, based on this, intelligent services will be studied and developed for an adaptive management of the data collection [5,59]. NEREA-fix provides an almost real-time data transmission system.…”

“…The data collected require complex processing by advanced computational approaches, such as niche and network modelling, as well as Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms [5,6], thus extending a vision already introduced in plankton investigations [7,8]. In addition, marine ecosystems are increasingly subjected to different anthropogenic stressors that can act synergistically and alter their diversity and functioning in a still, to date, not fully understood fashion.…”