ANERIS Project: Towards Operational Marine Biology

Euro-BioImaging is delighted to be part of the ANERIS (operAtional seNsing lifE technologies for maRIne ecosystemS) project, which kicks off this week in Barcelona. The ANERIS Project aims to create advanced scientific instruments and techniques for detecting marine life by integrating multiple technologies, such as genomics, imaging-biooptics, and participatory sciences. To accomplish this, a cooperative strategy will be employed, engaging all interested parties, including academic institutions, corporations, non-governmental organizations, and governmental agencies.

Data-driven understanding of marine ecosystems

The project introduces the idea of Operational Marine Biology (OMB) as a comprehensive information system for monitoring and interpreting oceanic and coastal biodiversity through regular and sustained measurements, tracking the response to environmental changes. The objective of this system is to generate FAIR Operational Marine Biology data from a variety of different measurement modalities, including underwater imaging, and leveraging this data via a distributed IT infrastructure comprising of edge and cloud compute nodes that will be connected to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) .

The ANERIS project will develop and connect the technologies through a number of case studies, which will comprise of the ANERIS advancements, including improved commercial instruments, and are supported by various globally acclaimed RIs. Furthermore, the project will establish a training program aimed at instructing all the involved stakeholders, and specifically the research infrastructure personnel, on the operation and utilization of these novel solutions, spreading the developed tools beyond the consortium.

The Consortium

The ANERIS consortium is composed of 18 partners and 6 affiliated partners (26 in total) from 13 different countries and is coordinated by CSIC . More in detail, the consortium is made up of 15 Research Infrastructures, 6 SME’s, 3 Civil organizations and 2 “Other Academics"' partners.

The consortium brings together expertise from a diverse range of disciplines. All involved teams having outstanding and complementary expertise and skills in various research fields relevant to the project tasks. ANERIS has very ambitious goals linked to marine-life monitoring that are achievable because of its broad, well-integrated and uniquely qualified consortium. The project is designed to ensure that various perspectives related to marine observation are comprehensively addressed by a versatile team of researchers with expertise in different areas of marine life sciences, technological disciplines, as well as engaging the public in the developments of the project. The team adopts a transdisciplinary approach that fosters collaboration within and between different branches of natural sciences and technologies involved in the research design. By carefully selecting representatives and involving local actors in the project, the consortium has strategically chosen complementary case studies for technology and concept validations.

Euro-BioImaging in ANERIS

Two Euro-BioImaging Nodes are actively contributing to the technology development in ANERIS - France Bioimaging and Israel Bioimaging. Both Nodes will be centrally focussed on developing new tools for image analysis and improving of image quality for underwater imaging and microscopy, including via AI tools, and take on leading roles in the project. France BioImaging is represented by the team of Perrine Paul-Gilloteaux at the University of Nantes, and Israel BioImaging is represented by the teams of Tali Treibitz and Derya Akkaynak from the University of Haifa.

Euro-BioImaging will connect the tools developed by these teams within ANERIS with our image data services, connect the ANERIS project with the imaging community and other ongoing initiatives in the area of environmental science and AI, as well as provide training opportunities for Euro-BioImaging Node staff.

Within the ANERIS project, Euro-BioImaging will support the project activities by organising three virtual workshops in which Euro-Bioimaging will ensure respectively

(i) training on basic concepts of AI for image analysis,

(ii) presentation of the ongoing technology development and invite experts in underwater imaging and image analysis and

(iii) disseminating the developed imaging tools and image analysis and improvement methods for future uptake by the biological imaging community.

Euro-BioImaging will support the integration of the Imaging-Bio-optics use case with the cutting-edge computational infrastructure as well as community building, user engagement and case studies promotion.