304 Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities
this. Such analyses require a clear decision context so that cost-efficiency can be
evaluated in the right ‘currency’. This chapter discusses in detail two technologies
that hold great promise for threatened species monitoring: drones and
environmental DNA.
Introduction
In the last few decades, technology has profoundly transformed the way we live,
interact and work. Accelerating technological and engineering progress is being
matched by cheaper development and production costs, unprecedented computing
power and near-global connectivity. This convergence brings tremendous
opportunities for studying, monitoring and managing threatened species (Pimm et
al. 2015).
Conservation is already benefiting from new technologies. The list of devices
used to survey and monitor wildlife and habitats is long and growing, including:
animal telemetry and radio-tracking; camera traps; GPS; remote sensing (from
satellites and planes, including RADAR and LiDAR); autonomous vehicles
(including aerial and underwater drones); proximity loggers; environmental
sensors; acoustic detectors (both in the audible range and ultrasonic); PIT tags; and
physiological sensors. Some tools are well established and keep improving (e.g.
radio-tracking collars), while others are still being explored (e.g. mesh networks of
sensors). Australia is leading the field in some of these technologies (e.g. biosensing
networks). Biomedical technologies are also being incorporated into the
conservation toolbox, including DNA barcoding, environmental DNA analysis and
next generation sequencing. Finally, advances in computing and processing
algorithms further contribute to realising the potential of these technologies,
including: web platforms to store and share data; mobile applications that empower
citizen science; virtual reality for engagement and education; automated species
identification from images or sound; automated tracking of individuals within
video; and Big Data approaches to deal with the forthcoming data deluge.
Several aspects make such technologies attractive for threatened species
monitoring:
● (^) more and better quality data: from automated data collection, potentially at
larger spatial and temporal scales; from harnessing the power of mass
collection and handling of data through citizen scientists; from more efficient
species detection; from enabling sampling at remote, inaccessible, or dangerous
locations; from less invasive sampling methods; and from standardised
protocols (removing surveyor variation)
● (^) new types of data: high-resolution continuous data on species ecology,
individual position and physiology, and of their environments