ASPAZOR got wings!

Alexandros Kellaris, a master student from the Imperial College of London has been working on his thesis within the ASPAZOR framework: "The goal of this project is to develop and evaluate a monitoring approach for seaweeds using drones. The methodology is applied to Asparagopsis armata, an invasive red seaweed in the Azores with high commercial interest." He is being supervised by project team members Chris Yesson and Artur Gil.

Take a look at one of Alexandros tweets: "One of the cool things of being an #ecologist is the opportunity to do research in exotic places! My masters project, a collaboration between @imperialcollege, @ZSLScience and @CE3CResearch, sent me in the #Azores to develop a monitoring tool for #seaweeds using #drones."

"A major challenge we are hoping to tackle with drones in this case is the high heterogeneity of the seaweed communities in the Azores. With the high spatial resolution of drones, it might be easier to obtain clear spectral information for each seaweed group of interest, as opposed to satellites and most airborne systems. On the other hand, drone imagery typically lacks the spectral resolution provided by the latter remote sensing platforms, making it harder to distinguish similar species. Indeed, Asparagopsis armata probably displays similar colorations with other red seaweeds including Asparagopsis taxiformis, but the less mixing of spectral information due to higher spatial resolution might provide a distinct spectral profile for the species. Nevertheless, the potential for distinguishing A. armata from other similar species is quite low, but this project will hopefully provide important insights into the feasibility of using drones to monitor heterogeneous seaweed communities in general."

see more in here!