New Grant: AI and Biodiversity Change Global Climate Center
New grant alert!
Marta is a co-PI on a newly awarded NSF project to lead a new global climate center on AI for biodiversity change. The AI and Biodiversity Change (ABC) Global Climate Center will bring together ecologists and computer scientists from six universities in the United States and Canada, with partners in UK, Europe, and Australia, to develop new AI-enabled, data-supported approaches to study how changes in climate are impacting life.
about the new center
The principal investigators of the center at Ohio State are Tanya Berger-Wolf, faculty director of the Translational Data Analytics Institute (TDAI), and Marta Jarzyna, assistant professor of evolution, ecology and organismal biology (EEOB) and a core faculty member of TDAI.
“Climate change is affecting every aspect of life on Earth,” said Berger-Wolf, who is also a professor of computer science and engineering, EEOB, and electrical and computer engineering. “The problem is that we … don’t have enough data about the impacts of climate on many species, and the data we do have is messy and not aligned. And that is where AI can come to the rescue.”
Researchers in the project will conduct fundamental AI research and develop and use new AI-based methods and tools to analyze data from camera traps, sound recorders, images from satellites and low-flying aircraft, DNA sequences and citizen science efforts. They will develop new and extend existing ecological models to leverage that data and AI approaches.
One example: Researchers will develop new AI-informed ecological models to detect and understand how and why species are moving their ranges north across the border from the United States to Canada as the climate warms, potentially serving as an early warning system.
They will study 222 species of birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles that currently breed within 800 km (about 500 miles) of the border. They will use AI analysis of satellite images and extend ecological models to determine how habitat changes might influence northward movement of species.
Acoustic sensors, camera traps and DNA barcodes – which can identify species – will help document the species’ move north. And AI-enabled identification of photos from partner citizen science initiatives such as iNaturalist, eBird, eButterfly and Bumble Bee Watch will also show the progression of species as they approach Canada. The findings should be able to provide early warning when various species are likely to move beyond their current ranges and into new areas in Canada not previously recorded.
“The goal is to help develop the understanding of the mechanisms of negative impacts on biodiversity due to climate change so that we may develop interventions to mitigate them.”
The ABC Global Climate Center is part of the NSF-led Global Centers program, an effort implemented with international funders “to encourage and support large-scale collaborative research on use-inspired themes in climate change and clean energy.”