VIC02 - What’s that critter?

Develop an AI/ML application to identify deep-sea macro fauna observed in Cascadia Basin (2700m depth). You will be given a labeled dataset and train your model to identify and classify the unique and little-studied species recorded by seafloor cameras at this deep-ocean site. This classifier could help inform policies relating to fisheries and deep-sea mining. It will also support ecosystem characterization and monitoring and help support coastal Indigenous Nations’ food sovereignty by providing information about offshore deepsea species distribution and fauna abundance.

A classifier that can identify the species in an image, or produce a list of species sorted by likelihood of being a match, and report the lowest clade that contains the image can be classified as. Additionally, an initial analysis or characterization of species occurrence correlations with various essential ocean variables such as oxygen, currents, etc.

ML specialists, computer scientists, marine biologist