Artificial intelligence has helped scientists explore the evolutionary history of an iconic Australian tree, which scientists say could help tackle threats like climate change and biodiversity loss.
Advancements in artificial intelligence have helped scientists explore the evolutionary history of an iconic Australian tree, which scientists say could help tackle threats like climate change and biodiversity loss.
In the study, scientists at Botanic Gardens of Sydney and UNSW Sydney used AI to analyse an unprecedented number of leaves from Eucalyptus, Angophora and Corymbia, with some amazing results.
The paper, published in the Journal of Ecology, analysed over 50,000 digitised images of eucalyptus specimens, some dating back as far as 1839, to reveal if species’ leaves had evolved in line with changes in the climate.
In 2023 scientists from Botanic Gardens of Sydney and UNSW built a machine-learning program to examine millions of plant specimens stored in herbaria around the world and discovered leaf size within species doesn’t increase in warmer and wetter climates.
In this latest research, the eucalypts went through the same process in an attempt to understand how their leaf sizes changed with climate over millions of years.
Botanic Gardens of Sydney scientist Karina Guo said, “Using AI, we’ve been able to work with huge amounts of data, which was simply not possible before. It’s changed the game in finding the minutia of flora, helping us to paint a very detailed picture of the past.
“Instead of manually assessing thousands of images of specimens, which can take years, the machine learning can look at tens of thousands in less than four days.”