The ocean is the main climate regulator and responsible for sequestering carbon dioxide. This makes it our main defence against climate change. Ecosystem health can be established based on the presence of particular types of plankton. The health of the ocean can only be determined through large-scale measurements such as satellite imagery. These would potentially allow large tracts of the ocean to be analysed in a way. There are studies allowing to identify properties such as the amount of chlorophyll or the salinity of the water from satellite images. With this challenge we propose to go further: We propose to determine the variation of plankton species inhabiting a given area of the ocean by cross-referencing genomic data with satellite images. Alternatively, we propose to study the use of marker species, such as whales, which can be identified and their presence implies the existence of others.
***
La salud del océano solo puede ser determinada a través de mediciones a gran escala como son las imágenes satelitales. Existen estudios que consiguen identificar propiedades como la cantidad de clorofila o la salinidad del agua a partir de imágenes de satélite. Con este desafío nos proponemos ir mas allá: Proponemos la determinar la variación de las especies de plankton que habitan un área dada del océano al cruzar datos genómicos con imágenes de satélite. Como alternativa se propone estudiar el uso de especies marcadoras, como las ballenas que puedes ser identificadas y que su presencia implica la existencia de otras.