Underwater hyperspectral classification of deep sea corals exposed to 2-methylnaphthalene.

• Published in: PLOS ONE
• Main Authors: Paul Anton Letnes, Ingrid Myrnes Hansen, Lars Martin Sandvik Aas, Ingvar Eide, Ragnhild Pettersen, Luca Tassara, Justine Receveur, Stéphane le Floch, Julien Guyomarch, Lionel Camus, Jenny Bytingsvik
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2019
• Subjects: Medicine; R; Science; Q; Lophelia pertusa
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209960; https://doaj.org/article/622f17387283421b883b949866b080d8

Coral reefs around the world are under threat due to anthropogenic impacts on the environment. It is therefore important to develop methods to monitor the status of the reefs and detect changes in the health condition of the corals at an early stage before severe damage occur. In this work, we evaluate underwater hyperspectral imaging as a method to detect changes in health status of both orange and white color morphs of the coral species Lophelia pertusa. Differing health status was achieved by exposing 60 coral samples to the toxic compound 2-methylnaphthalene in concentrations of 0 mg L-1 to 3.5 mg L-1. A machine learning model was utilized to classify corals according to lethal concentration (LC) levels LC5 (5% mortality) and LC25 (25% mortality), solely based on their reflectance spectra. All coral samples were classified to correct concentration group. This is a first step towards developing a remote sensing technique able to assess environmental impact on deep-water coral habitats over larger areas.