CONFERENCE - AI to understand and preserve biodiversity

AI and biodiversity: where do we stand?

AI is profoundly transforming the life sciences, offering new capabilities for analyzing, classifying and interpreting data from natural environments. Thanks to these advances, researchers can process huge volumes of information, from images captured in terrestrial or marine ecosystems, to sound recordings used to study wildlife, or genetic sequences revealing the diversity of the microscopic world.

AI is now being used to automate the recognition of plant and animal species, identify individuals within cetacean populations, analyze acoustic data to monitor habitat evolution, or annotate and interpret the growing number of sequenced genomes.

These tools open up unprecedented prospects for biodiversity research and conservation, facilitating the monitoring of populations and ecosystems, the detection of rare or endangered species, and the study of interactions between organisms and their environment. Analysis of sounds recorded in forests or oceans helps to better understand the distribution and behavior of animal species. The annotation of genomic sequences sheds light on the evolutionary and functional processes of living organisms. These initiatives illustrate the considerable potential of AI for understanding and preserving the natural world, but they also highlight the challenges involved in sustainably integrating these technologies into scientific practice.

This conference will bring together specialists to discuss current applications, future prospects and methodological obstacles to the adoption of AI in the study and conservation of biodiversity.

Speakers

• Julien Mozziconacci, teacher-researcher at MNHN, specialist in AI applied to genomics
• Lucie Bittner, teacher-researcher at Sorbonne University, expert in metagenomics
• Elodie Laine, teacher-researcher at Sorbonne University, specialist in AI and protein sequence-structure-function relationships
• Alexis Martin, teacher-researcher at MNHN, marine biodiversity researcher
• François Dussoulier, project manager at MNHN, specialist in participatory science and MNHN collections
• Jérôme Sueur, MNHN teacher-researcher, eco-acoustics expert
• Vincent Miele, CNRS project leader in AI and biodiversity.

To attend the conference, which is free and open to all (children and teenagers welcome), register via this link.