Software Application for Automatic Detection and Analysis of Biomass in Underwater Videos

Abstract

The use of underwater recording is widely implemented across different marine ecology studies as a substitute for more invasive techniques. This is the case of the Deep Scattering Layer (DSL), a biomass-rich layer in the ocean located between 400 and 600 m deep. The data processing of underwater videos has usually been carried out manually or targets organisms above a certain size. Marine snow, or macroscopic amorphous aggregates, plays a major role in nutrient cycles and in the supply of organic material for organisms living in the deeper layers of the ocean. Marine snow, therefore, should be taken into account when estimating biomass abundance in the water column. The main objective of this project is to develop a new software application for the automatic detection and analysis of biomass abundance relative to time in underwater videos, taking into consideration small items. The application software is based on a pipeline and client-server architecture, developed in Python and using open source libraries. The software was trained with underwater videos of the DSL recorded with low-cost equipment. A usability study carried out with end-users shows satisfaction with the user-friendly interface and the expected results. The software application developed is capable of automatically detecting small items captured by underwater videos. In addition, it can be easily adapted to a web application.

Keywords

• biological software tools
• underwater image processing
• biomass abundance
• deep scattering layer
• marine snow