Artificial intelligence is being used in the search for a female mate for a critically endangered male plant species that predates dinosaurs.
One of the original Encephalartos woodii stems at the Durban Botanical Gardens, South Africa. Image credit: Purves, M. via wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 3.0
A research project led by the University of Southampton is scouring thousands of acres of forest in South Africa, where the only known “Encephalartos woodii” – or E. woodii – has been found, in a bid to find a female.
And if the hunt doesn’t bear fruit, researchers are also investigating the possibility of changing the sex of the plant to create a female version.
The only known E. woodii was discovered in Ngoye Forest, South Africa, in 1895. It was moved several years later for safekeeping, and samples were sent to botanical gardens – including that of Kew in London – where it is still multiplied and cultivated today.
But with only one male found, all subsequently propagated samples are male clones, so the plant cannot reproduce naturally. The Ngoye forest has, until now, never been fully explored to determine if a female might exist.
Hunting with drones
Dr Laura CINTI, a researcher at the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, is leading the first project using drones and AI to search for female E. woodii. She said: “As far as we know, this plant is extinct in the wild. I was very inspired by the story of E. woodii, it reflects a classic story of unrequited love. I hope there is a female somewhere, after all there must have been one at some point. It would be incredible to bring this plant back so close to extinction through natural reproduction.
Dr Cinti collaborates with Dr Howard Boland, a creative technology expert working in the field of AI, and Dr Debbie Jewitt, a conservation scientist and drone pilot based in South Africa.
The first drone flights in 2022 took tens of thousands of images and used a multispectral sensor to capture features beyond what can be seen from above with the naked eye – like distinguishing whether plants are alive or dead and identify the species.
But with no E. woodii yet found, drone imaging is underway – now with the power of AI. So far, they have covered 195 acres of Ngoye forest – and there are 10,000 acres in total.
“With AI, we use an image recognition algorithm to recognize plants by their shape,” explains Dr. Cinti. “We generated images of plants and placed them in different ecological contexts, to train the model to recognize them. »
Dr. Cinti is also working on a new partner project to determine whether it is possible to change the sex of children. E. woodii using chemical or physiological manipulation and then generating vegetative plants from this material.
She said: “There have been reports of sex changes in other cycad species due to sudden environmental changes such as temperature. We therefore hope to be able to induce a sex change in individuals. E. woodii too. »
The history of the E. woodii
Encephalartos woodii is a type of plant known as cycad. Cycads are the oldest seed plants, dating back over 300 million years and having survived multiple mass extinctions and environmental changes.
They are dioecious, meaning they are male or female, and they produce cones from which pollen is carried by insects to reproduce.
Despite their longevity, they are today the most endangered organisms on our planet, and Encephalartos woodii is the rarest of all.
Dr Cinti said: “Cycads sell on the black market for hundreds of thousands of pounds and are kept in cages in botanic gardens due to the risk of theft. »
More information is available on the project website.
Source: University of Southampton
Originally published in The European Times.
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