Koster Observatory2022-05-10T11:40:19+12:00

Koster Observatory

A machine learning and citizen science approach to analyse underwater footage from Sweden’s first marine national park.

Underwater footage displaying the outputs of a machine learning model that identifies cold-water corals.
Jannes  Germishuys/ Combine

Cold water coral. Photo by Emil Burman.

Hidden treasures

Cliffs, deep valleys, forests of seaweed, rocky reefs, shallow bays and narrow straits are some of the diverse underwater landscape hidden under the Kosterhavets National Park, Sweden’s first marine national park.
Photo of a sugar starfish on the seafloor. Photo by Emil Burman.

Rich biodiversity

With over 6,000 different marine seaweeds and animals, Kosterhavets National Park is the most species-rich marine environment in Sweden.

Remotely operated vehicle used to capture underwater videos

Remotely Operated Vehicles

For the last 30 years, researchers have used Remotely Operated Vehicles to monitor the park.

The footage helps biologists understand threats like climate change and the positive effects of protecting the national park.

Dahlia anemone. Photo by Emil Burman.

Challenging ID

Fuzzy images and the high animal diversity makes the manual classification of underwater videos a challenging task for researchers.

Wildlife.ai is developing  an open-source approach to analysing large amounts of subsea movie data for marine ecological research.

The approach incorporates three distinct modules to: manage and archive the subsea movies, involve citizen scientists to accurately classify the footage and train and test machine learning algorithms for detection of biological objects.

Koster Seafloor Observatory 2.0

The Koster Seafloor Observatory 2.0 has new movies of wonderful seafloor critters, extensive identification keys, and teaching modules for students. Underwater video of the artificial intelligence algorithm [...]

Koster Observatory Initial Results

Citizen scientists have analysed +50,000 videos and trained a machine learning model to recognise cold water corals! Underwater video of the artificial intelligence algorithm recognising [...]

Jannes Germishuys
Jannes GermishuysData Ranger
Marisa Ponti
Marisa PontiCommunity Ranger
Matthias Obst
Matthias ObstProject Ranger
Emil Burman
Emil BurmanEcology Ranger
Sarah Alkhateeb
Sarah AlkhateebData ranger
Victor Anton
Victor AntonProject ranger
Lisa Bodlak
Lisa BodlakData Ranger
Joel Hjärne Kokk
Joel Hjärne KokkEcology Ranger
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