Monitoring Community Composition Essential Biodiversity Variables along the Patagonian coastline using Artificial Intelligence: A case study of the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON Pole to Pole)

MONTES ENRIQUE; GREGORIO BIGATTI; BRAVO, GONZALO; GABRIELA PALOMO; MARIA MARTHA MENDEZ; LIVORE, JUAN PABLO; KAVANAUGH MARIA; FRANK MULLER-KARGER; CHRISTOPHER KELBLE

Montreal

Conferencia; GEO BON Global Conference: Monitoring Biodiversity for Action; 2023

GEO BON

Rocky intertidal zones of the Argentinian Patagonia are highly biodiverse habitats. Theysupport assemblages of invertebrates, macro-algae, fishes, and marine mammals thatprovide nutritional, cultural, economic, and recreational services to local communities.Our understanding of how community composition in such rocky shores responds toepisodic stress events, climate change, and pressures due to human activities likeharvesting of commercially-important species is limited due to poor observationalcoverage. This has impaired effective management and conservation of these resources.The Marine Biodiversity Observation Network Pole to Pole of the Americas conducteda workshop in March 27th - 31st, 2023, to train 26 park rangers from nine MarineNational Parks in southern Argentina on image-based biodiversity monitoringtechniques targeting sessile invertebrates and macro-algal assemblages. The goal was toimplement simple yet effective standard methods for estimating percent cover andbiodiversity metrics of Community Composition EBVs. Over 4,000 benthic imageswere collected and analyzed with CoralNet’s convolutional deep neural networkalgorithm to compute percent cover indicators for mollusks, barnacles, macro-algaltaxa, bare substrate, and species frequencies across 11 sites spanning latitudes from -49.26 to -42.24 °S. The objectives are to: 1) enable routine and frequent monitoring ofkey local habitats; 2) define baselines for broad functional groups, species richness, andcommunity composition at each site; 3) characterize oceanographic and atmosphericconditions shaping these assemblages; 4) detect and understand departures ofCommunity Composition EBVs from baseline levels within these National MarineParks; and 5) inform decision-making of Park authorities and other relevant governmentagencies in Argentina.