tech
AI could help win ‘race against extinction’ of vital plants, say botanists
Tech is helping to identify and save new specimens and could open ‘genomic goldmine’ of fungi data
TL;DR
- AI and digitization are seen as crucial tools in the fight against plant and fungal extinction.
- New technologies allow scientists to track shifts in flowering times, identify specimens rapidly, and extract genetic data from historical samples.
- Digitization of millions of archived specimens is providing new insights, especially for the global south.
- Approximately 40% of assessed plant species are at risk of extinction, with millions more yet to be analyzed or even named.
- Fungi face an even more critical situation, with 90% of estimated species unknown to science and less than 1% assessed for extinction risk.
- AI models are showing promise in identifying challenging plant species, sometimes outperforming human specialists.
- Digitizing specimens accelerates international collaboration and access to important collections.
- A global study revealed that flowering times have shifted by an average of 2.5 days per decade due to the climate crisis.
- Extracting genomes from old fungal specimens is opening up a 'genomic goldmine' for potential new medicines and disease prediction.
- Concerns exist regarding the energy and water usage of AI datacenters.
- The report warns that digitization and AI could amplify existing biases if data is not expanded and improved.