Achievements
The amount of data collected so far by our participants is immense, and already we are putting it to good use.
Learn moreabout AchievementsSeadragonSearch is a community-based research initiative with a mission to collect data about wild seadragon populations across Australia using underwater photography. Our project has partnered with the non-profit software developer Wild Me, using machine learning tools to identify seadragons in photos and track individual dragons over time.
Seadragons are spectacular fish, and are popular subjects with SCUBA divers and underwater photographers. The goal of our initiative is to use machine learning to automate photo matching, so that we can track more seadragons through their lifespans and across their distributions. By doing so, we can efficiently gather large volumes of data from all Australian states where seadragons occur. Automating most of the matching process with machine learning aims to increase the accuracy and scale with which we can monitor seadragon populations in real time. To that end, our new initiative builds upon the Wildbook platform developed by the non-profit Wild Me, combining computer vision, machine learning, and community science to gather data on individual wild seadragons.
We plan to run SeadragonSearch for at least a decade to determine how ongoing innovations in artificial intelligence tools can be applied to seadragon research, including future machine and deep learning applications. SeadragonSearch is a collaborative effort between marine biologists, software engineers, and underwater photographers, and we’re excited to discover more details about seadragon populations and how to best protect both the dragons and their incredibly biodiverse habitats.
