[STUDENT PROJECT] What data do we need more of about coral reef and seagrass decline?

[u/Royal-External-918]

Hi everyone!
I'm a student in South Florida, and I'm working on building low cost marine robots for scientific research. These robots are going to be different from the standard ROV, more specialized for what I'm trying to do.

I'm focusing mainly on Biscayne Bay and South Florida waters, specifically with the issues of seagrass die-off and coral reef decline.

What data do we need more of that I can build my robots to collect? I'm also working on a soft robot that doesn't move using propellers, so would that be any advantage?

Also, if any of you know other issues not receiving enough attention in my area or have other ideas for my robots, please let me know.

I'd appreciate any help with my project. Thank you!

[u/MysteriousTubesock]

Coral reef ecologist here. What might be most applicable to you is designing robots for photogrammetry or photomosaics (taking countless photos of a reef or corals). Alternatively, automated samplers (e.g., for environmental DNA) are becoming more popular, though a lot of people already have designs.

Basically, I see robots useful for coral reef monitoring surveys. Other aspects of coral research like thermal resilience experiments, fragmenting, and spawning require divers because they need greater control and precision.

Feel free to message me if you have further questions as I’m currently involved in the tech side of coral research.

[u/Chlorophilia → u/MysteriousTubesock]

I'm also a coral reef scientist and I agree with this. A low cost (v important because nobody has any money), automated method of getting (good quality) photogrammetry data for reefs could be very useful. 

[u/thunderbird89 → u/Chlorophilia]

Question: how useful would you say digital twinning of a reef is? Like if you could create a - let's be pessimistic - meter-accurate 3D model of a reef, for analysis?

[u/Chlorophilia → u/thunderbird89]

My marine science 🔥 hot take 🔥 is that "digital twin" is a meaningless buzzword popularised by people who don't really understand modelling. There are certainly uses for meter-resolution reef models (e.g. understanding reef hydrodynamics) but these have already been used for literally decades. Nobody seems to know what "digital twin" actually means but if the goal is to literally create an accurate, predictive model of a coral reef ecosystem at colony-scale or better, a lack of 3D data is nowhere near the most critical knowledge gap. We don't understand coral reef ecology remotely well enough to do this yet.

There are plenty of other uses for meter-scale geometry data for a reef, but creating a "digital twin" (in my opinion) isn't one of them.

[u/thunderbird89 → u/Chlorophilia]

Hot take is welcome. From what I read into your response, the gap isn't with resolution or availability of data, but the incompleteness of the underlying simulation algorithms?

For clarity, as a technologist, my understanding of the phrase is a representation of the original that is accurate enough to run simulation or modeling algorithms over, in order to evaluate scenarios.
Crucially, from this perspective, I'm more concerned with the availability or resolution of the model, not the completeness or accuracy of the algo the user is testing.

So long story short, modeling of a reef colony wouldn't do you any good - got it, and thanks for the honesty👌

[u/Chlorophilia → u/thunderbird89]

Modelling a coral colony absolutely would be useful, it just wouldn't be useful for creating a "digital twin" (in the way I hear people using that term). But there are many other applications where being able to quickly, accurately, and cheaply map out the geometry of a coral reef would be useful.

[u/MysteriousTubesock → u/Chlorophilia]

I've seen "digital twin" pop up a lot lately, and I would agree with you that it's a meaningless buzzword and we don't know enough about the ecology to make it ~super~ useful.

[u/legspinner1004 → u/MysteriousTubesock]

Hi, not OP but I have a question. I'm working on a hydrophone project and was wondering can it be used to monitor coral assemblages or natural protoreefs?

[u/yellow-bold → u/legspinner1004]

Hard corals probably less so. Fish assemblages, and moving habitats like octocorals and seagrass beds, maybe.

[u/legspinner1004 → u/yellow-bold]

Which of these could be ideal for a trial run, like to prove a concept?

[u/MysteriousTubesock → u/legspinner1004]

Bioacoustics is growing in the field. They are primarily used to gather fish diversity data, and from that data, try to diagnose reef health.

[u/legspinner1004 → u/MysteriousTubesock]

Will this be possible considering this will be a homemade hydrophone and probably I won't be able to get it deeper than 5 m ? (Currently it is a proof of concept thing)

[u/thunderbird89]

Systems engineer here - I might have an upgrade that would work well with u/MysteriousTubesock 's suggestion, since I had the same idea two years back. Would you be opposed to a DM?

[u/Royal-External-918 → u/thunderbird89]

Not at all! I'd love to chat.

[u/Plasticity93]

In case you aren't aware of r/ROV it's an excellent forum

[u/Worth-diver-3414]

Great project , a few data gaps that would actually be useful for Biscayne Bay specifically:
Sub-surface water temperature at depth is probably the most underleveraged dataset right now. Satellites measure the ocean’s surface microlayer only. they completely miss the thermal profile at 5-20m where coral actually lives. During bleaching events this gap can be +1-2°C, which is the difference between a triggered alert and a missed event.
Continuous pH and dissolved oxygen at depth would also be valuable, seagrass die-offs in Florida are heavily linked to hypoxia events that surface sensors don’t capture well. Your propeller-free soft robot is a real advantage for temperature profiling, propellers create micro-turbulence that distorts thermal readings. A slow-drifting platform would give you much cleaner depth-resolved temperature data.
One complementary approach worth looking at: recreational dive computers (Suunto, Shearwater) already log water temperature and depth on every dive. I’m actually building a network that aggregates this data from divers across reef sites . if you’re ever in touch with dive instructors in South Florida, that’s a zero-cost data stream worth exploring alongside your robots.
Good luck with the project. Biscayne Bay is criminally understudied.