ETRI breathes digital life into cultural heritage

Leading cooperation with the National Museum of Korea for digital transformation of world-class cultural heritage. Development and demonstration of an intelligent platform combining AI and cultural heritage digitization.

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

 

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INCHEON AIRPORT MEDIA WALL - 2023 IF DESIGN AWARD WINNER

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CREDIT: ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE(ETRI)

South Korean researchers are revitalizing the nation's world-class cultural heritage through digital transformation. By collaborating with museums, they are bringing the rich history and culture of Korea to life using AI-based technology development.

Since 2020, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and the National Museum of Korea have been working together under a Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism R&D project to develop and demonstrate key technologies for the digital transformation of Korean cultural heritage.

The two institutions have been applying AI technology to enhance the quality and usability of museum data, and they have been promoting research on foundational technologies and the development of an intelligent heritage platform that manages and utilizes new types of data in various environments and for different purposes.

ETRI has focused on AI-based data analysis and standardization of cultural heritage. Notable efforts include:

- Data fabric-based archives1)
  1) Data Fabric Based Archives: Technology that connects and provides access to relevant data anytime, anywhere, based on AI.

- AI-based cultural heritage analysis2)
  2) AI-Based Cultural Heritage Analysis: Technology for analyzing cultural heritage data and automatically generating metadata.

- Digital heritage standards3)
  3) Digital Heritage Standards: Standards for the comprehensive utilization of increasing digital cultural heritage data.

- Generative AI-based data expansion4)
  4) Generative AI-Based Data Expansion: Technology supporting the generation of required resolutions, qualities, and styles for content and devices.

- Sharing platforms for various demands5)
  5) Sharing Platforms for Various Demands: Platform technology that can support purposes such as preservation, exhibition, education, and management.

Using these technologies, the research team has been striving to create an intelligent digital heritage sharing platform to support:

- Museum artifact management

- Cultural heritage preservation research

- Immersive content creation

- Interactive cultural heritage education

The developing digital heritage sharing platform uses data fabric technology based on AI, enabling immediate utilization of the diverse forms of digital cultural heritage data continuously increasing in museums, aiming for the world’s top-class usability.

Globally, attempts to enhance the value and usability of cultural heritage by integrating digital and AI technologies are increasing. However, museums often find it challenging to have a practical platform integrating these technologies due to the complexity and specific needs of digital heritage.

Around the world, experts in cultural heritage and digital technology are collaborating, yet significant trial and error occurs due to differences in experience and knowledge, along with issues related to data structure, usability limitations, and conflicts with museum processes.

In this context, developing and applying the new platform to the work of the National Museum of Korea staff is considered crucial in advancing South Korea's leadership in the digital transformation of cultural heritage.

Moreover, a digital standard process for storing and utilizing high-quality digital cultural heritage data, generated and utilized by new technologies annually, is being completed in collaboration with museums, a world-first achievement.

This digital heritage standard process guarantees the availability of data not only for existing cultural heritage but also for various applications like virtual reality, digital twin, and the metaverse. This transformation allows museums to become proprietors of their data, adapting it into various forms.

Data produced through the standard process creates a foundation for the highest level of cultural heritage, usable in exhibitions, preservation, education, and more. In the digital age, we can expect strategic digital incursions and unfounded claims from certain countries aiming to advance their own interests. Particularly during such times, it is crucial for nations to strive to secure the digital scalability of their cultural heritage. Thus, the completion of a comprehensive digital standards process holds significant importance.

Through four years of joint efforts, ETRI and the National Museum of Korea have established a high-quality digitalization process for cultural heritage, which includes sharing and spreading this process to affiliated research institutes, related industries, and academic institutions such as Technology Research Institute for Culture & Heritage, LiST Co., Ltd., Chung-Ang University, and Korea National University of Cultural Heritage.

Using the digital standard technology developed last year, ETRI, the National Museum of Korea, and the Technology Research Institute for Culture & heritage have created digital content of the National Treasure “Pensive Bodhisattva” at the Millennium Hall of Incheon International Airport Terminal 1. This work won the public branding category of the German IF Design Award, one of the world's top three design awards, last year.

Additionally, the “Pyeongsaengdo” content of the National Museum of Korea, which implements world-class high-quality cultural heritage content, won the Red Dot Award last year.

The research team has utilized ultra-high-resolution digital asset data for the digital “Gwanggaeto Stele” content in the main lobby of the National Museum of Korea, “The Path of History.” In addition, the Korea Heritage Service co-exhibited cultural heritage immersive content using ‘Chilbo Sando Folding Screen’ with the Cleveland Museum of Art in the U.S., showcasing the world's top-level digitalization of cultural heritage based on the developed technology.

The foundation of these achievements lies in the followings:

- Improving the quality of cultural heritage digital data

- Developing technology for visualizing cultural heritage networks

- Text mining technology for generating knowledge-based cultural heritage relationships

This includes research on developing AI technologies specialized for cultural heritage and studies on the creation and utilization of cultural heritage assets.

The collaboration model between the two institutions addresses digital cultural heritage data utilization and field issues in areas like preservation, exhibition, education, archives, and open storage.

Complete digital transformation will be achieved when a platform is built that allows broad searchability and easy utilization and sharing of cultural heritage information and data within people's lives.

ETRI, together with the National Museum of Korea, has advanced numerous cutting-edge studies, including:

- Cultural property database modeling

- AI-based automatic digital conversion of traditional cultural heritage data

- Standardization research on ultra-high-resolution digital cultural heritage assets

Tae-hee Lee, a researcher at the National Museum of Korea, said, “We expect that the long-term collaboration between these two leading institutions in cultural heritage and advanced technology will set the stage for developing AI technology and application models usable in the specialized field of Korean cultural heritage.”

Jae-Ho Lee, the head researcher at ETRI's Content Convergence Research Section, added, “The numerous digital projects on cultural heritage data at the National Museum of Korea can be considered the starting point of South Korea's digital transformation. Both institutions have prepared for the digitalization of heritage-related information, such as descriptions of each cultural property, related materials, and relationships with other heritage items.”

ETRI explained that their new challenge this year in the data fabric field is innovative and promising, offering a positive opportunity to secure international technological competitiveness in the era of digital transformation.

  

Digital Pyeongsaengdo - 2023 Red Dot Award Winner

Joint exhibition and digital repatriation of “Mountain Chilbo Screen” owned by the Cleveland Museum of Art

CREDIT

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute(ETRI)

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This technology has achieved results as part of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's project, “Development of Intelligent Heritage Sharing Platform Technology Leading Digital Standards for Cultural Heritage.”

 

About Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI)

ETRI is a non-profit government-funded research institute. Since its foundation in 1976, ETRI, a global ICT research institute, has been making its immense effort to provide Korea a remarkable growth in the field of ICT industry. ETRI delivers Korea as one of the top ICT nations in the World, by unceasingly developing world’s first and best technologies.

Revolutionizing the abilities of adaptive

radar with AI

AI approaches and an enormous open-source dataset could spark rapid advancements in adaptive radar systems similar to those seen in computer vision over the past two decades.

DUKE UNIVERSITY

 

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ADAPTIVE RADAR HAS A MUCH EASIER TIME FINDING AND TRACKING OBJECTS IN FLAT, SIMPLE GEOGRAPHIES LIKE THE UTAH SALT FLATS (LEFT) THAN IT DOES COMPLEX TERRAIN LIKE MT. RAINIER (RIGHT). RECENTLY PUBLISHED RESEARCH IS USING AI TO TAKE GEOGRAPHICAL MAPS LIKE THOSE SHOWN INTO ACCOUNT TO PUSH ADAPTIVE RADAR INTO AN ENTIRELY NEW TIER OF EFFECTIVENESS.

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CREDIT: DUKE UNIVERSITY

DURHAM, N.C. – The world around us is constantly being flash photographed by adaptive radar systems. From salt flats to mountains and everything in between, adaptive radar is used to detect, locate and track moving objects. Just because human eyes can’t see these ultra-high frequency (UHF) ranges doesn’t mean they’re not taking pictures.

Although adaptive radar systems have been around since World War II, they’ve hit a fundamental performance wall in the past couple of decades. But with the help of modern AI approaches and lessons learned from computer vision, researchers at Duke University have broken through that wall, and they want to bring everyone else in the field along with them.

In a new paper published July 16 in the journal IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation, Duke engineers show that using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) — a type of AI that revolutionized computer vision — can greatly enhance modern adaptive radar systems. And in a move that parallels the impetus of the computer vision boom, they have released a large dataset of digital landscapes for other AI researchers to build on their work.

“Classical radar methods are very good, but they aren’t good enough to meet industry demands for products such as autonomous vehicles,” said Shyam Venkatasubramanian, a graduate research assistant working in the lab of Vahid Tarokh, the Rhodes Family Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke. “We’re working to bring AI into the adaptive radar space to tackle problems like object detection, localization and tracking that industry needs solved.”

At its most basic level, radar is not difficult to understand. A pulse of high-frequency radio waves is broadcast, and an antenna gathers data from any waves that bounce back. As technology has advanced, however, so too have the concepts used by modern radar systems. With the ability to shape and direct signals, process multiple contacts at once, and filter out background noise, the technology has come a long way in the past century.

But radar has come just about as far as it can using these techniques alone. Adaptive radar systems still struggle to accurately localize and track moving objects, especially in complex environments like mountainous terrain.

To move adaptive radar into the age of AI, Venkatasubramanian and Tarokh were inspired by the history of computer vision. In 2010, researchers at Stanford University released an enormous image database consisting of over 14 million annotated images called ImageNet. Researchers around the world used ImageNet to test and compare new AI approaches that became industry standard.

In the new paper, Venkatasubramanian and his collaborators show that using the same AI approaches greatly improves the performance of current adaptive radar systems.

“Our research parallels the research of the earliest users of AI in computer vision and the creators of ImageNet, but within adaptive radar,” Venkatasubramanian said. “Our proposed AI takes as input processed radar data and outputs a prediction of the target's location through a simple architecture that can be thought of as paralleling the predecessor of most modern computer vision architectures.”

While the group has yet to test their methods in the field, they benchmarked their AI’s performance on a modeling and simulation tool called RFView®, which gains its accuracy by incorporating the Earth's topography and terrain into its modeling toolbox. Then, continuing in the footsteps of computer vision, they created 100 airborne radar scenarios based on landscapes from across the contiguous United States and released it as an open-source asset called “RASPNet.”

This is a valuable asset, as only a handful of teams have access to RFView®. The researchers, however, received special permission from the creators of RFView® to build the dataset — which contains more than 16 terabytes of data built over the course of several months — and make it publicly available.

“I am delighted that this groundbreaking work has been published, and particularly that the associated data is being made available in the RASPNet repository,” said Hugh Griffiths, Fellow Royal Academy of Engineering, Fellow IEEE, Fellow IET, OBE, and the THALES/Royal Academy Chair of RF Sensors at University College London, who was not involved with the work. “This will undoubtedly stimulate further work in this important area, and ensure that the results can readily be compared with each other.”

The scenarios included were handpicked by radar and machine learning experts and have a wide range of geographical complexity. On the easiest side for adaptive radar systems to handle is the Bonneville Salt Flats, while the hardest is Mount Rainier. Venkatasubramanian and his group hope that others will take their ideas and dataset and build even better AI approaches.

For example, in a previous paper, Venkatasubramanian showed that an AI tailored to a specific geographical location could achieve up to a seven-fold improvement in localizing objects over classical methods. If an AI could select a scenario on which it had already been trained that is similar to its current environment, it should substantially improve in performance.

“We think this will have a really big impact on the adaptive radar community,” Venkatasubramanian said. “As we move forward and continue adding capabilities to the dataset, we want to provide the community with everything it needs to push the field forward into using AI.”

This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-21-1-0235, 20RYCORO51, 20RYCOR052).

CITATIONS: “Data-Driven Target Localization Using Adaptive Radar Processing and Convolutional Neural Networks,” Shyam Venkatasubramanian, Sandeep Gogineni, Bosung Kang, Ali Pezeshki, Muralidhar Rangaswamy, Vahid Tarokh. IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation, July 16, 2024. DOI: 10.1049/rsn2.12600

“RASPNet: A Benchmark Dataset for Radar Adaptive Signal Processing Applications,” Shyam Venkatasubramanian, Bosung Kang, Ali Pezeshki, Muralidhar Rangaswamy, Vahid Tarokh. arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.09638

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JOURNAL

IET Radar Sonar & Navigation

DOI

10.1049/rsn2.12600 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Data-Driven Target Localization Using Adaptive Radar Processing and Convolutional Neural Networks

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

16-Jul-2024

Texas A&M engineers explore intelligence augmentation to improve safety

Researchers are developing a framework to merge AI and human intelligence in hopes of improving process safety systems

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

Artificial intelligence (AI) has grown rapidly in the last few years, and with that increase, industries have been able to automate and improve their efficiency in operations.

A feature article published in AIChE Journal identifies the challenges and benefits of using Intelligence Augmentation (IA) in process safety systems.

Contributors to this work are Dr. Faisal Khan, professor and chemical engineering department head at Texas A&M University, Dr. Stratos Pistikopoulos, professor and director of the Energy Institute, Drs. Rajeevan Arunthavanathan, Tanjin Amin, and Zaman Sajid from the Mary Kay O’Connor Safety Center.

Additionally, Dr. Yuhe Tian from West Virginia University contributed the novel perspective of using AI in process plants from a safety perspective.

The research basis is to use an AI approach to process safety alongside humans rather than replacing them in operational decision-making, according to Khan.

“This research aims to develop a comprehensive framework based on IA that integrates AI and Human intelligence (HI) into process safety systems, ensuring enhanced safety and efficiency,” Arunthavanathan said. “We aim to provide a clear understanding of the potential and limitations of AI, propose IA strategies for their effective implementation to minimize risks and improve safety outcomes.”

Helping Humans, Not Replacing Them

Khan believes that AI and human intelligence can be combined, dispelling the fear that AI may eventually replace humans as it advances in its ability to perform tasks.

“The study examines the challenges in incorporating AI technology in real-world industrial applications and how IA can improve process monitoring, fault detection, and decision-making to improve process safety,” Amin said.

Khan contends that AI will improve safety by analyzing real-time data, predicting maintenance needs, and automatically detecting faults. However, the IA approach, using human decision-making, is also expected to reduce incident rates, lower operational costs, and increase reliability.

“The application of AI in chemical engineering presents significant challenges, which means it is not enough to ensure comprehensive process safety,” Sajid said. “To overcome these limitations, IA is introduced to work alongside human expertise rather than replace it.”

The research identifies several risks associated with implementing AI and IA in process industries. AI risks include data quality issues, overreliance on AI, lack of contextual understanding, model misinterpretation, and training and adaptation challenges. On the other hand, the risks associated with IA include human error in feedback, conflict in AI-HI decision-making, biased judgment, complexity in implementation, and reliability issues.

“The researchers are particularly interested in the challenges of AI and conceptualize IA to augment human decision-making in process safety,” Tian said. “They are fascinated by how AI can provide accurate and prompt responses based on data analysis while human intelligence can offer broader insights and considerations, including ethical and social factors.”

Khan believes that this research emphasizes the importance of developing reliable, trustworthy, and safe AI systems tailored to industrial applications.

“The collaboration between AI and human intelligence is seen as essential for advancing process safety,” Khan said. “Ongoing exploration of this synergy to meet the evolving demands of industrial safety will continue to enhance AI’s capabilities while ensuring robust risk management frameworks are in place,” Pistikopoulos added.

By Raven Wuebker, Texas A&M University Engineering

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JOURNAL

AIChE Journal

DOI

10.1002/aic.18475 

ARTICLE TITLE

Process safety 4.0: Artificial intelligence or intelligence augmentation for safer process operation?

 

Estimating rainfall intensity using surveillance audio and deep-learning

A new approach for high-resolution hydrological sensing for environmental resilience

EURASIA ACADEMIC PUBLISHING GROUP

Surveillance cameras generate both video and audio outputs. Unlike video images recorded, the audio can be supplemented reliably as audio sources resist background interference and lighting variability. Creating a reliable way to use these audio sources to estimate the intensity of rainfall could open a new chapter in rainfall intensity estimation.

 

In a study published in Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, researchers created an audio dataset of six real-world rainfall events, named the Surveillance Audio Rainfall Intensity Dataset (SARID). This dataset's audio recordings were segmented into 12,066 pieces and annotated with rainfall intensity and environmental information, such as underlying surfaces, temperature, humidity, and wind.

 

The researchers developed a deep learning-based baseline to estimate rainfall intensity from surveillance audio. Validated from ground truth data, the research baseline from the system deployed achieved a root mean absolute error of 0.88 mm h-1 and a coefficient of correlation of 0.765.

 

These findings demonstrate the potential of surveillance audio-based models as practical and effective tools for rainfall observation systems, initiating a new chapter in rainfall intensity estimation.

 

The work offers a new approach for high-resolution hydrological sensing and contributes to the broader landscape of urban sensing, emergency response, and environmental resilience.

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JOURNAL

Environmental Science and Ecotechnology

DOI

10.1016/j.ese.2024.100450 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Estimating Rainfall Intensity Based on Surveillance Audio and Deep-Learning

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

18-Jul-2024

 

Can consciousness exist in a computer simulation?

Philosophy

RUHR-UNIVERSITY BOCHUM

 

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WANJA WIESE SEARCHES FOR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COMPUTERS AND BRAINS.

 

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CREDIT: © RUB, MARQUARD

Two different approaches

When considering the possibility of consciousness in artificial systems, there are at least two different approaches. One approach asks: How likely is it that current AI systems are conscious – and what needs to be added to existing systems to make it more likely that they are capable of consciousness? Another approach asks: What types of AI systems are unlikely to be conscious, and how can we rule out the possibility of certain types of systems becoming conscious?

In his research, Wanja Wiese pursues the second approach. “My aim is to contribute to two goals: Firstly, to reduce the risk of inadvertently creating artificial consciousness; this is a desirable outcome, as it’s currently unclear under what conditions the creation of artificial consciousness is morally permissible. Secondly, this approach should help rule out deception by ostensibly conscious AI systems that only appear to be conscious,” he explains. This is particularly important because there are already indications that many people who often interact with chatbots attribute consciousness to these systems. At the same time, the consensus among experts is that current AI systems are not conscious.

The free energy principle

Wiese asks in his essay: How can we find out whether essential conditions for consciousness exist that are not fulfilled by conventional computers, for example? A common characteristic shared by all conscious animals is that they are alive. However, being alive is such a strict requirement that many don’t consider it a plausible candidate for a necessary condition for consciousness. But perhaps some conditions that are necessary for being alive are also necessary for consciousness?

In his article, Wanja Wiese refers to British neuroscientist Karl Friston’s free energy principle. The principle indicates: The processes that ensure the continued existence of a self-organizing system such as a living organism can be described as a type of information processing. In humans, these include processes that regulate vital parameters such as body temperature, the oxygen content in the blood and blood sugar. The same type of information processing could also be realized in a computer. However, the computer would not regulate its temperature or blood sugar levels, but would merely simulate these processes.

Most differences are not relevant to consciousness

The researcher suggests that the same could be true of consciousness. Assuming that consciousness contributes to the survival of a conscious organism, then, according to the free energy principle, the physiological processes that contribute to the maintenance of the organism must retain a trace that conscious experience leaves behind and that can be described as an information-processing process. This can be called the “computational correlate of consciousness”. This too can be realized in a computer. However, it’s possible that additional conditions must be fulfilled in a computer in order for the computer to not only simulate but also replicate conscious experience.

In his article, Wanja Wiese therefore analyses differences between the way in which conscious creatures realize the computational correlate of consciousness and the way in which a computer would realize it in a simulation. He argues that most of these differences are not relevant to consciousness. For example, unlike an electronic computer, our brain is very energy efficient. But it’s implausible that this is a requirement for consciousness.

Another difference, however, lies in the causal structure of computers and brains: In a conventional computer, data must always first be loaded from memory, then processed in the central processing unit, and finally stored in memory again. There is no such separation in the brain, which means that the causal connectivity of different areas of the brain takes on a different form. Wanja Wiese argues that this could be a difference between brains and conventional computers that is relevant to consciousness.

“As I see it, the perspective offered by the free energy principle is particularly interesting, because it allows us to describe characteristics of conscious living beings in such a way that they can be realized in artificial systems in principle, but aren’t present in large classes of artificial systems (such as computer simulations),” explains Wanja Wiese. “This means that the prerequisites for consciousness in artificial systems can be captured in a more detailed and precise way.”

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JOURNAL

Philosophical Studies

DOI

10.1007/s11098-024-02182-y 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Commentary/editorial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Artificial Consciousness: A Perspective From the Free Energy Principle

 RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY

Research will establish best ‘managed retreat’ practices for communities faced with climate change disaster

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

 

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HOUSING FLOODED BY HURRICANE MATTHEW, OCT. 8-9, 2016

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CREDIT: NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE

LAWRENCE — Around the globe, communities at risk from repeated flooding due to climate change face stark decisions. Some communities in peril of flooding may resolve, or be urged, to relocate to a safer location — something known as “managed retreat.” In the United States, flood-prone communities in coastal states like Louisiana and Alaska already have commenced managed retreat inland. 

“It's retreating from risk, and we hope to provide decision support for the equitable implementation of retreat to build climate resilience,” said Elaina Sutley, associate professor of civil, environmental & architectural engineering at the University of Kansas. 

Sutley is leading a three-year, $650,000 multidisciplinary study of managed retreat as part of a collaboration funded by the National Science Foundation and Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund via the 2023 International Joint Initiative for Research on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Competition. Each agency funds the scientists at institutions in their respective countries.

The KU-headed partnership is dubbed “Retreating from risk (RFR): Decision-supports for the equitable implementation of retreat to build climate resilience.” Beyond KU, the effort involves Stony Brook and Texas Tech universities as well as researchers abroad. 

“This is multidisciplinary collaboration between partners in the United States, Canada and Indonesia, who are all faced with flood disasters, whether that's coastal flooding associated with a hurricane or not,” Sutley said. “Inland flooding, seasonal flooding and repeated nuisance flooding — all three of these countries are facing it. Managed retreat has become a somewhat common adaptation strategy, particularly for flooding. The U.S. team will also consider retreating from wildfire disasters.”

While the study of managed retreat will focus on communities suffering from floods and wildfires, Sutley said the work could guide decision making for communities faced with different kinds of repeating natural disasters. 

“Floods aren’t the only hazard this work is applicable to,” she said. “In many ways, flooding isn’t much different from a lot of hazards. How can we best move out of a place that is going to be hit repeatedly by disaster and has a record of being hit repeatedly?” 

The KU researcher said the goal is to understand how managed-retreat approaches are being considered across many geographies, nations and cultures, then identify any key strategies that are shared, as well as understand where there are necessary differences. 

“There are many different strategies,” Sutley said. “In the U.S., one of the most common ways we see managed retreat executed is with the buyout program from FEMA. This project, through our international collaboration, is trying to understand how different cities and governments — faced with different types of hazards, with different political, social and cultural contexts — have considered managed retreat. Did they successfully adopt it or one of its strategies? What challenges or barriers did they run into that prevented them from adopting it? What challenges came up when they went through this process? What can we learn within countries across geographies, and then across countries and geographies?”

Sutley said the team would take care to seek and incorporate Indigenous knowledge and practices where applicable, partnering with communities that may already have faced relocation or exploitation historically. 

“The new Frontiers Research Fund of Canada require that you consider and include Indigenous communities,” Sutley said. “That's part of some of their equity legislation. It’s key to work with people who have relationships and experience doing this — taking time to build trust that's needed. Those are going to be key tenets. While the locations we've identified in the United States to partner with aren’t on reservations, for example, they certainly do have people who’ve been disproportionately impacted by historical and modern-day policies and practices that our team is very sensitive to.” 

From these studies, the collaborating researchers will document political, financial, social, cultural and policy barriers to adopting managed retreat. The study will include data collection via surveys, interviews, focus groups and roundtable discussions, ensuring the work incorporates viewpoints from people involved in the decision-making process at all levels.  

“How can we use all of that information to guide future communities who may consider managed retreat as an option?” Sutley said. “What are the pros? What are the things that make this a really great option in these different areas? Really, I think we're going to hear very different things from one community to the next but also from one kind of stakeholder in that decision process to the next. So, we're taking more of an open-ended approach.”

The results will help guide policymakers, community leaders and future research efforts. The researchers plan to produce “contextually relevant decision-support tools,” such as a training module, best-practices guidebook or conversation toolkits, to guide community leaders in engaging constituents on managed retreat.

Sutley said managed retreat is an urgent issue and the work would yield tools at the end of its three-year span.

“Any research that can offer guidance is needed as soon as possible,” she said. “We're really trying to learn from communities at different stages of dealing with this question — those who are over and done with it, those at the beginning and those in the middle. We're studying communities at all these different stages so we can understand how the process unfolds in these different contexts. The findings are meant to be relevant both immediately and long term.” 

 

Global study by Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology demonstrates benefit of marine protected areas to recreational fisheries

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA

 

IMAGE: 

A GLOBAL MAP OF MARINE PROTECTED AREAS

 

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CREDIT: MARINE CONSERVATION INSTITUTE & MARINE PROTECTION ATLAS

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are having a positive spillover effect, producing more “trophy-size” fish just outside of the fully protected areas, and the effect is growing stronger over time. That’s according to research led by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa scientists at the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) published today in Science Advances. The research provides the first global assessment of the benefits of MPAs. “Trophy-size” refers to fish that are exceptionally long or heavy and are considered a rare, prized catch.

“This standardized global assessment illustrates the benefits that MPAs provide for recreational anglers, confirming the effectiveness of MPAs in enhancing fish biomass and local fisheries,” shares Simone Franceschini, Principal Investigator of the study and a Postdoctoral Researcher at HIMB. “Our study found that MPAs may take more than 20 years to show tangible spillover effects in the adjacent areas, which helps to set realistic expectations about the timeframe over which a marine reserve can be expected to have this type of effect on surrounding fisheries.”

The Hawaiian archipelago has 13 state and federal MPAs (complete list below). The state protected areas, called Marine Life Conservation Districts, are managed by the State of Hawaiʻi Division of Aquatic Resources. 

Marine protected areas have been identified as one of the most effective tools for securing marine biodiversity, but until now the global impact of MPAs on local, recreational fisheries has been unclear. This study provides globally-relevant guidance for what management agencies, conservation practitioners, and, importantly, recreational fishers can expect over the long term from the establishment of MPAs.

The research builds on the work of Callum Roberts et al., a team of scientists who twenty years ago conducted a study in Florida and discovered that the cumulative number of trophy fish caught near an MPA (within 100km of its boundary) rises rapidly between 12-30 years after MPA establishment. 

“In this paper, we test whether the results of one of the most well-known studies of MPA impacts on recreational fishers can be replicated at a global scale,” explains Elizabeth Madin, co-author of the paper and Associate Professor at HIMB. “We show that, on average, highly-protected marine ecosystems produce tangible, real-world, long-term benefits for recreational fishers, resulting in a win-win situation for nature and people alike. Nonetheless, it’s important to realize that not every MPA will have the same spillover effects, and that successful MPAs have been shown to depend on community support, enforcement, and effective fisheries management.” 

The findings of this study hold important implications for the future of MPAs and the global “30x30” marine conservation initiative, which aims to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030. 

“These results provide evidence-based guidance that can help ensure the successful implementation and long-term support of MPAs worldwide,” says co-author John Lynham, who is a Professor of Economics at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. “It's intriguing to note that various MPAs around the world, despite their differing sizes and characteristics, have demonstrated a similar positive spillover effect and a similar ‘wait time:’ roughly 20 years.”

The study also underscores the importance of setting practical expectations about the benefits of marine reserves for local fisheries. While MPAs can lead to substantial increases in the abundance of large fish, these benefits often require decades to materialize. This requires patience and long-term commitment from policymakers and local communities to maintain support for conservation efforts. Nonetheless, as Callum Roberts, lead author of the original 2001 study upon which the current study was built, points out, “Local fishers will see benefits to their catches from spillover of smaller fish long before that spillover becomes detectable in the form of large trophy fish, which take longer to reach record breaking sizes. So, well protected MPAs can help support local livelihoods within a decade of creation.”

Saltwater recreational fishing holds cultural significance and is a key  economic driver throughout the world. In the United States in 2017, 8.6 million saltwater anglers took 202 million fishing trips generating $73.8 billion in sales impacts, $41.5 billion in value-added impacts, $24.7 billion in income impacts, and supporting 487,000 jobs (NOAA). 

CREDIT

Tri Nguyen

This graph illustrates the cumulative records of trophy-size fish catches over time in five different Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). The open (white) circles represent records within 0-100km from the MPA boundary, while the dark (black) circles represent records between 100-200km from the MPA boundary. The vertical dark-blue dashed lines indicate when fishing protection was implemented within the MPAs. After the MPAs were established, there is a noticeable increase in the number of record-sized fish caught near the MPAs. This is consistent with the MPA providing a spillover of record-sized fish into adjacent, fished areas.

CREDIT

Franceschini et al. and Nancy Hulbirt, SOEST Illustrations, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Marine Protected Areas in Hawaiʻi

Federally protected marine areas

• Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary
• Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument

State protected marine areas

• Hanauma Bay Marine Life Conservation District, Oʻahu
• Pūpūkeaahu Marine Life Conservation District, Oʻahu
• Waikīkī Marine Life Conservation District, Oʻahu
• Kealakekua Bay Marine Life Conservation District, Hawai'i
• Lapakahi Marine Life Conservation District, Hawai'i
• Old Kona Airport Marine Life Conservation District, Hawai'i
• Waialea Bay Marine Life Conservation District, Hawai'i
• Wai'ōpae Tidepools Marine Life Conservation District, Hawaii
• Honolua–Mokulē'ia Marine Life Conservation District, Maui
• Mānele–Hulopo'e Marine Life Conservation District, Maui
• Molokini Shoal Marine Life Conservation District, Maui

 

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.ado9783 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

A Global Test of MPA Spillover Benefits to Recreational Fisheries

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

19-Jul-2024

 

Fish adjust reproduction in response to predators

UT Arlington research shows fish species evolve egg-laying habits when threatened

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON

 

IMAGE: 

RANGING IN SIZE FROM ABOUT 2 TO 6 INCHES, THE KILLIFISH ARE IDEAL FOR EVOLUTIONARY STUDIES BECAUSE THEY ARE HIGHLY ADAPTABLE TO THEIR SURROUNDINGS. SOME TYPES OF KILLIFISH ARE EVEN KNOWN TO BE AMPHIBIOUS, ABLE TO LIVE ON LAND TO AVOID PREDATORS.

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CREDIT: PHOTO CREDIT UT ARLINGTON

Some species of fish can evolve their egg-laying habits in response to predators in the area in order to survive, according to new research from The University of Texas at Arlington.

It has long been observed that organisms modify their traits, including reproductive patterns, in response to changes in their environment. This type of evolutionary plasticity has been observed in many types of animals in different habitats and with varying predators.

“We knew that fish who laid their eggs externally often adapted depending on the predators in the area, but we did not know how quickly species could change to these externals pressures,” said biology Professor Matthew Walsh, who recently published a paper on the topic in the prestigious Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

For his research, Dr. Walsh and biology lab technician Christopher Roden studied a small type of fish called the killifish that lives on the island of Trinidad in the Caribbean. Ranging in size from about 2 to 6 inches, the killifish are ideal for evolutionary studies because they are highly adaptable to their surroundings. Some types of killifish are even known to be amphibious, able to live on land to avoid predators.

The researchers tested the differences in egg-hatching plasticity among killifish living in sites with and without predators. They then examined the reproductive habits of those two populations by measuring the rates of hatching when eggs were laid submerged in water versus outside water on the surface of moist peat moss. The timing, hatching and offspring growth rates between the two groups of fish were then compared.

“Our study found striking differences in egg-hatching plasticity among killifish living in different habitats,” said Walsh. “This research provides new insights into how aquatic organisms adapt and evolve to changes in their environment. These findings may be particularly important in predicting how species are able to adapt to external pressures, such as those caused by climate change.”

UT Arlington biology Professor Matthew Walsh

Killifish live in streams in Trinidad

CREDIT

Photo credit UT Arlington

JOURNAL

Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences

DOI

10.1098/rspb.2024.0083 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Fish (eggs) out of water: evolutionary divergence in terrestrial embryonic plasticity in Trinidadian killifish

COI STATEMENT

We declare we have no competing interests. This work was funded by the following grant from the UA National Science Foundation: NSF DEB 2236741.

 

To walk, you only need fins (and maybe a sense of adventure)

A recent anatomical study of the mudskipper reveals their adaptations to walking on land.

OKINAWA INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (OIST) GRADUATE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

MUDSKIPPER

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CREDIT: DR. KEN MAEDA/OIST

Okinawa’s mangrove forests are home to many animal species, from crabs to kingfishers; they host a diverse ecosystem teeming with life. Among the quirkier residents living there is “Minami-Tobihaze” — the barred mudskipper. “They are fish, but they can walk and live partly on land,” says Dr. Fabienne Ziadi-Künzli from the Nonlinear and Non-equilibrium Physics Unit, who is the first author of a study on mudskipper anatomy, which was recently published in the Journal of Anatomy.

Adapting to a new life  

The barred mudskipper, scientifically called Periophthalmus argentilineatus, has more than just one oddity. Their eyes sit more on top than on the side of their heads, and despite having no lungs, these fish can breathe air. “Mudskippers take up oxygen via their skin, which they always have to keep moist, or through their mouth,” says Dr. Ziadi-Künzli. Sometimes, they even swallow a big mouthful of air and hold it there to bring it to their eggs. “They dig burrows in the mud and blow out the air inside to ensure their eggs get enough oxygen,” explains Dr. Ziadi-Künzli.

Yet their probably most astounding adaptation to life on land is the ability to walk. "Our ancestors developed limbs and digits before they left the water, but we don't see this in these fish. Mudskippers are amphibious and still have fins that function for both swimming and walking,” says Dr. Ziadi-Künzli. To move on land, the mudskippers mainly use the fins attached to the side of their bodies, which are called pectoral fins. 

“Mudskippers have a unique way of moving, which has not been seen in any other living amphibious fish species. It is called crutching,” says Dr. Ziadi-Künzli. Instead of moving their pectoral fins alternately, like humans use their legs when walking, the mudskippers swing their pectoral fins forward simultaneously, as we might do with crutches to take the weight off an injured leg.

A snapshot of evolution in progress 

"It is kind of thrilling to think about these fish and how they walk. After Prof. Mahesh Bandi and his colleagues finished a study on how the specific shape of the human foot gives it the necessary stability to walk, we started wondering what morphological adaptations to movement on land we might see when studying the fins of the amphibious mudskipper,” says Dr. Ziadi-Künzli. Driven by her scientific interest as a fish biologist, she delved into the literature on the topic.

Surprisingly, the last in-depth anatomical study on mudskipper fins was done in the 1960s and information about adaptations of the mudskipper's muscles and other soft tissues to life on land was scarce. With her experience in anatomical studies and access to micro-computed tomography (µCT) within the OIST Core Facilities, she and her colleagues decided to investigate the mudskippers' adaptations to life outside of the water themselves.

“The µCT has an x-ray source and a microscopic detector that picks up the signal. Because we were interested in soft tissue, we used iodine to give the soft tissue a better contrast on the images,” explained Dr. Ziadi-Künzli. With this method, the team imaged various fish, starting with the mudskipper and its close evolutionary relatives. For comparison, the researchers also scanned other fish, for example the zebrafish, which are only distantly related to the mudskipper.

With the initial imaging complete, the hardest part of the study was about to begin: The analysis of the thousands of separate images produced by the µCT. “We had to manually sort through all those images to identify each tissue. Basically, we have been working on the analysis since 2019,” notes Dr. Ziadi-Künzli.  The researcher’s tedious work eventually proved worthwhile when the first 3D images of the mudskippers revealed several unique adaptations to life outside of the water. “We found that their muscles in the pectoral fins are bigger, and the same is true for the shoulder girdle to which they attach,” says Dr. Ziadi-Künzli.

The researchers were even more amazed when they discovered that in the mudskipper's pectoral fins, the ones they use to walk, some bone-connecting tendons were replaced by fascia tissue. “We think this is an adaptation that helps the mudskippers to push themselves forward during walking because the fascia tissue gives more stability and might help to create the strength needed to move their mass on land,” explained Dr. Ziadi-Künzli.

The higher intensity of gravity on land seems to have caused another adaptation in the mudskipper's bodies, “there is a connection between the shoulder and the pelvic fin through a kind of joint that we don't see in any other fish we scanned,” says Dr. Ziadi-Künzli. These changes hint at how severe the evolutionary pressure might be when organisms transition from water to land.

And the bones did not remain unaffected in the mudskipper either, whose fins need to carry much more weight while walking than swimming. “Usually pectoral fin rays are crescent-shaped if you look at a cross-section but, in the mudskipper, they were round near the fin ray base and then changed to crescent shape towards the tip of the fin ray. "We think this might give the fin more mechanical stability,” says Dr. Ziadi-Künzli. Other researchers have described similar shapes of fin ray bones, some fossils of extinct fish that were ancestors to land-walking animals.

All these discoveries left the team itching to dive even deeper into understanding the mudskipper’s evolution, “when the mudskippers are in their larval state, they look no different from many other goby fish larvae, but during metamorphosis, they change their body and fin anatomy rapidly. We want to look at this development from larvae to adults to understand this transition better,” says Dr. Ziadi-Künzli.

For these future tasks, Dr. Ziadi-Künzli and co-author Dr. Ken Maeda, who is a staff scientist in the Marine Eco-Evo-Devo Unit, set up a cross-laboratory collaboration to study the mudskipper metamorphosis from larvae to adult fish. “Using these virtual dissection tools gives us a whole new perspective on the anatomy of animals – which is important work. After all, how shall we understand an organism and its evolutionary adaptations if we don't know how they are built?” says Dr. Ziadi-Künzli.

The barred mudskippers raise their offsprings in burrows which usually have two entrances and a Y-shaped tunnel to connect them underground. This burrow's owner is peeking out from the entrance on the right.

The fins of the mudskipper 

A barred mudskipper has six different fins which they use for example to swim, dig, walk or during courtship. On land, the pectoral fins are most important to move but the pelvic fin on the belly and the tail (caudal fin) also play an essential role in propelling the fish forward.

Watch a mudskipper walking on Okinawa’s mangrove shore

CREDIT

Dr. Ken Maeda/OIST

A 3D image showing some of the detailed findings of the anatomical structures overlaid on a mudskipper's body. 

CREDIT

Pavel Puchenkov, Fabienne Ziadi-Künzli, (created with Blender (online community), http://www.blender.org)/ OIST

Dr. Ziadi-Künzli worked on images such as this to identify the different organs and tissues including muscles, bones, cartilage and tendons, inside the animals' bodies. 

CREDIT

Dr. Fabienne Ziadi-Künzli/OIST, Image taken with Thermo Fisher Scientific‘s AMIRA Software.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Anatomy

DOI

10.1111/joa.14071 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Imaging analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Anatomical insights into fish terrestrial locomotion: A study of barred mudskipper (Periophthalmus argentilineatus) fins based on μCT 3D reconstructions