Google announced this week that it is sharing results from a partnership with Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, which is using artificial intelligence and genomics to help restore giant kelp.
According to Google, underwater forests of giant kelp protect coastlines and support marine ecosystems, but they are disappearing worldwide due to ocean warming. The company said kelp populations along the Tasmanian coast have dwindled to 5% of their historic numbers.
The team recently published two reference genomes for Australian giant kelp to provide a foundation for conservation genetics work, Google said. Researchers then trained a version of DeepVariant, an open-source artificial intelligence tool from Google, to analyze giant kelp DNA. Using the tool, researchers sequenced 600 wild specimens collected from 40 sites along the coast of Tasmania.
The genetic analysis and partners’ lab-based cross-breeding studies are laying the groundwork to replant giant kelp forests with diverse, heat-tolerant specimens, Google said. The effort is part of Google Australia’s Digital Futures Initiative.