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MEDIA: How AI could unlock deep‑sea secrets of marine life
17 March 2026
PML’s Professor Kerry Howell writes for the The Conversation UK on how AI can unlock critical biodiversity data to guide marine conversation.
Image courtesy of Eurofleets 2, Marine Institute, University of Plymouth
“Somewhere in the North Atlantic, more than a kilometre beneath its surface, a cold-water coral reef stretches across an unnamed seamount. Despite never appearing on a chart, this underwater forest has existed for centuries, growing a centimetre or two each year.”
“The reef is a home and feeding ground for dozens of species that depend on it the way a woodland creature depends on trees. It has survived ice ages – but whether it will survive increasing pressures from industrial fishing, deep-sea mining and climate change is, in part, a question about data. If we don’t know it exists, how can we protect it?”
Read the full story via The Conversation UK >>
In the article, Kerry explains how the new Deep Vision project will harness cutting edge advances in Big Data and AI to help better protect a raft of species that play a vital, yet largely unseen, role in our ocean. Deep Vision is led by Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) and the University of Plymouth with partners Institute of Marine Research (IMR), Norway, University of Galway, Bielefeld University, Universidade de Aveiro, University of Gibraltar and the University of Bergen (UiB).
