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Towards global insect biomonitoring with frugal methods

Brydegaard, Mikkel LU ; Pedales, Ronniel D. ; Feng, Vivian ; Yamoa, Assoumou Saint Doria ; Kouakou, Benoit ; Månefjord, Hampus LU orcid ; Wührl, Lorenz ; Pylatiuk, Christian ; Amorim, Dalton De Souza and Meier, Rudolf (2024) In Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 379(1904).
Abstract

None of the global targets for protecting nature are currently met, although humanity is critically dependent on biodiversity. A significant issue is the lack of data for most biodiverse regions of the planet where the use of frugal methods for biomonitoring would be particularly important because the available funding for monitoring is insufficient, especially in low-income countries. We here discuss how three approaches to insect biomonitoring (computer vision, lidar, DNA sequences) could be made more frugal and urge that all biomonitoring techniques should be evaluated for global suitability before becoming the default in high-income countries. This requires that techniques popular in high-income countries should undergo a phase of... (More)

None of the global targets for protecting nature are currently met, although humanity is critically dependent on biodiversity. A significant issue is the lack of data for most biodiverse regions of the planet where the use of frugal methods for biomonitoring would be particularly important because the available funding for monitoring is insufficient, especially in low-income countries. We here discuss how three approaches to insect biomonitoring (computer vision, lidar, DNA sequences) could be made more frugal and urge that all biomonitoring techniques should be evaluated for global suitability before becoming the default in high-income countries. This requires that techniques popular in high-income countries should undergo a phase of 'innovation through simplification' before they are implemented more broadly. We predict that techniques that acquire raw data at low cost and are suitable for analysis with AI (e.g. images, lidar-signals) will be particularly suitable for global biomonitoring, while techniques that rely heavily on patented technologies may be less promising (e.g. DNA sequences). We conclude the opinion piece by pointing out that the widespread use of AI for data analysis will require a global strategy for providing the necessary computational resources and training. This article is part of the theme issue 'Towards a toolkit for global insect biodiversity monitoring'.

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author
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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
frugal science, insect biomonitoring, photonics
in
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
volume
379
issue
1904
article number
20230103
publisher
Royal Society Publishing
external identifiers
  • scopus:85192298996
  • pmid:38705174
ISSN
0962-8436
DOI
10.1098/rstb.2023.0103
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
f7765de9-3a82-42b9-9880-5ecef92a7a09
date added to LUP
2024-12-20 10:43:12
date last changed
2025-07-19 03:54:29
@article{f7765de9-3a82-42b9-9880-5ecef92a7a09,
  abstract     = {{<p>None of the global targets for protecting nature are currently met, although humanity is critically dependent on biodiversity. A significant issue is the lack of data for most biodiverse regions of the planet where the use of frugal methods for biomonitoring would be particularly important because the available funding for monitoring is insufficient, especially in low-income countries. We here discuss how three approaches to insect biomonitoring (computer vision, lidar, DNA sequences) could be made more frugal and urge that all biomonitoring techniques should be evaluated for global suitability before becoming the default in high-income countries. This requires that techniques popular in high-income countries should undergo a phase of 'innovation through simplification' before they are implemented more broadly. We predict that techniques that acquire raw data at low cost and are suitable for analysis with AI (e.g. images, lidar-signals) will be particularly suitable for global biomonitoring, while techniques that rely heavily on patented technologies may be less promising (e.g. DNA sequences). We conclude the opinion piece by pointing out that the widespread use of AI for data analysis will require a global strategy for providing the necessary computational resources and training. This article is part of the theme issue 'Towards a toolkit for global insect biodiversity monitoring'.</p>}},
  author       = {{Brydegaard, Mikkel and Pedales, Ronniel D. and Feng, Vivian and Yamoa, Assoumou Saint Doria and Kouakou, Benoit and Månefjord, Hampus and Wührl, Lorenz and Pylatiuk, Christian and Amorim, Dalton De Souza and Meier, Rudolf}},
  issn         = {{0962-8436}},
  keywords     = {{frugal science; insect biomonitoring; photonics}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{1904}},
  publisher    = {{Royal Society Publishing}},
  series       = {{Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences}},
  title        = {{Towards global insect biomonitoring with frugal methods}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0103}},
  doi          = {{10.1098/rstb.2023.0103}},
  volume       = {{379}},
  year         = {{2024}},
}