Astro-ecology: the solution from the skies to save Earth's biodiversity

该项目的长期目标是以科技基金资助的天文学创新为基础，帮助应对全球挑战主题领域“可持续资源”和“可持续增长”中确定的发展中国家面临的挑战。在过去的18个月里，我们已经证明，由天文学家开发的用于探测发射和识别热(中红外，波长~10微米)波长天文图像中的物体的软件非常适合于识别和描述航空热视频片段中的动物。去年，我们获得了STFC 21世纪挑战泵启动资金，以支持一名博士后研究助理(PDRA)为期9个月的时间开发我们创建的自动化来源查找和识别软件管道，以便在不同的生态系统中工作。我们随后在这项工作的基础上发表了一篇试验性论文。与该报有关的新闻稿被世界各地的媒体转载。因此，我们收到了发展中国家许多保护组织的请求，要求使用我们的无人机软件管道系统。在证明这是一种在大面积监测和帮助管理动物种群方面具有成本效益和效率的潜在方式后，我们现在申请资金，以(I)帮助联系我们的利益攸关方，(Ii)从而证明这种方法可以应对发展中国家面临的一些主要挑战，如粮食安全、动物健康和生态系统监测/保护/养护，以及(Iii)开始在世界各地的发展中国家系统地应对这些挑战。

The long-term goal of this project is to build upon STFC-funded innovations in astronomy to help tackle challenges to developing countries identified in the Global Challenge Theme Areas, "Sustainable Resources" and "Sustainable Growth". Over the last 18 months we have demonstrated that software developed by astronomers to detect emission and identify objects in thermal (mid-infrared, wavelength ~10 micron) wavelength astronomical images is extremely well suited to identifying and characterising animals in aerial thermal video footage. Last year we were awarded STFC 21st Century Challenge pump priming funds to support a Postdoctoral Research Assistant (PDRA) for 9 months to develop the automated source-finding and identification software pipeline we created to work in different ecosystems. We have subsequently published a pilot paper based on this work. The press release associated with the paper was picked up by media outlets word-wide. As a result, we have received requests from many conservation organisations in developing countries asking to use our drone + software pipeline system. Having demonstrated that this has the potential to be a cost-effective and efficient way to monitor and help manage animal populations over large areas, we now request funding to (i) help the stakeholders who have contacted us, (ii) thereby demonstrate this approach can tackle some of the major challenges facing developing countries, such as food security, animal health and ecosystem monitoring/protection/conservation, and (iii) begin systematically tackling these challenges in developing countries around the world.