{"id":669703,"date":"2026-05-14T20:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T20:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/669703\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T20:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T20:59:12","slug":"autonomous-underwater-robot-discovers-hidden-coral-reef-hotspots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/669703\/","title":{"rendered":"Autonomous Underwater Robot Discovers Hidden Coral Reef Hotspots"},"content":{"rendered":"

The researchers used\u00a0CUREE<\/a>\u00a0(the Curious Underwater Robot for Ecosystem Exploration), a robotic vehicle developed as a part of the WHOI\u00a0Reef Solutions Initiative<\/a>, and combined CUREE\u2019s cameras, hydrophones, and powerful on-board computers to analyze audio and visual signals in real-time, enabling it to autonomously identify areas of higher biological activity at unprecedented resolution. Their work combines different types of observations\u2014direct (mapping audio and visual detection of animals) and indirect (what can be inferred from environmental soundscapes or behavior of sentinel species)\u2014to identify where biological hotspots are most likely to be located. The system represents a breakthrough in the ability to identify, map, and monitor the fine-scale structure of reef biodiversity, a key part of understanding reef health and resilience.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that biodiversity on reefs isn\u2019t distributed uniformly,\u201d said Seth McCammon, a WHOI roboticist and lead author of the study. \u201cBut until now we haven\u2019t really been able to reliably quantify that by finding these patchy hotspots, mapping them at the centimeter scale, and measuring just how active they really are. Developing this capability is going to be critical to helping biologists get a deeper understanding of reef ecology moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coral reefs, which occupy less than 0.01% of the ocean, yet support roughly one quarter of all marine species, are under mounting stress from warming ocean water, disease, overfishing, and coastal development. This biodiversity clusters in localized hotspots\u2014areas of intense biological activity that are critical for feeding, shelter, and reproduction. By resolving biodiversity patterns at sub-meter scales and linking them to habitat features such as reef structure, scientists will be better positioned to understand the processes that sustain reef ecosystems.<\/p>\n

\"WHOIWHOI scientist and WARP Lab lead Yogesh Girdhar tests the CUREE (Curious Underwater Robot for Ecosystem Exploration) autonomous underwater vehicle in the US Virgin Islands in November 2021. Members of the WARP Lab designed CUREE to navigate and sense complex coral reef environments autonomously to identify biodiversity hotspots. (Image credit: Dan Mele, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)<\/p>\n

Unlike traditional reef surveys conducted by trained divers, which are costly, limited in coverage, and potentially hazardous, CUREE can operate autonomously for hours at a time, precisely localize itself on the reef, and collect rich datasets over larger areas and longer periods. \u201cThat does not mean CUREE is a replacement for human observation of a reef,\u201d said Yogesh Girdhar, the project principal investigator and a roboticist who led the development of CUREE at\u00a0WHOI\u2019s WARP Lab<\/a>. \u201cInstead, it\u2019s meant to augment those capabilities and do things a human simply can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

The robot uses a novel framework that integrates these multiple sensing techniques through four complementary behaviors: visual fish surveys, acoustic mapping, sound-guided homing, and tracking of key \u201csentinel\u201d species. Together, these behaviors allow the system not only to map where biodiversity is concentrated, but also to actively seek out new hotspots\u2014even in unexplored and highly complex reef environments.<\/p>\n

In field trials conducted over three expeditions between 2022 and 2024 to a healthy reef in the US Virgin Islands known as Joel\u2019s Shoal, the robot consistently identified the same hotspot: an area surrounding a large pillar coral structure. Visual surveys of the reef, which is named after Joel Llopiz, the WHOI biologist who discovered the reef and who passed away in January, revealed fish densities nearly 25 times higher near the feature compared to the rest of the reef, while acoustic data confirmed elevated biological activity over a much larger area.<\/p>\n

In particular, the study highlights the power of combining audio and visual information underwater. Passive acoustic sensing can detect animal activity tens of meters away\u2014even when organisms are hidden or camouflaged, but the reef environment is very noisy, making it difficult to make precise maps of biological activity using sound alone. Cameras provide detailed, species-level information, but only over short ranges. By combining these data streams, the robot can detect distant activity with sound and then verify that with close-up visual observations. \u201cIn some sense, they\u2019re almost a perfect compliment for each other,\u201d said McCammon. \u201cPassive acoustics gives you a broad sense of the environment, while vision is short range, but is this really information-rich data stream.\u201d<\/p>\n

The system can also home in on specific biological sounds, such as snapping shrimp or species of fish known to make distinct calls, allowing it to navigate directly toward areas of interest without prior knowledge of the reef. In controlled experiments, the robot successfully tracked sound sources from distances of up to 80 meters and autonomously converged on natural reef hotspots over distances of 30 meters.<\/p>\n

In another demonstration, the robot followed a barracuda\u2014a top predator critical to the health of the reef ecosystem\u2014as it moved through its environment to identify a hotpot. Researchers propose this method of autonomously observing where the sentinel species repeatedly returns, as another way to identify the locations of ecological importance, offering insights into how predators interact with their surroundings.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the researchers envision fleets of such robots deployed globally to explore and monitor reefs that remain largely uncharted. By rapidly finding and characterizing biodiversity hotspots, the technology could help guide conservation decisions, prioritize protection efforts, and track ecosystem changes in a warming ocean.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs coral reefs face unprecedented challenges, we need smarter, faster ways to understand where life persists and why so conservationists and resource managers can focus their attention where it\u2019s needed most,\u201d said Girdhar. \u201cAutonomous systems like this can help us find\u2014and protect\u2014the most vital parts of these ecosystems before it\u2019s too late.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The researchers used\u00a0CUREE\u00a0(the Curious Underwater Robot for Ecosystem Exploration), a robotic vehicle developed as a part of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66],"class_list":["post-669703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}