Elkhorn coral, or Acropora palmata, is an important reef building species that promotes species abundance and other ecological services to the communities in the US Virgin Islands. We captured high resolution imagery of a reef in St. Croix’s East End Marine Park using a Wingtra One UAV. We then used deep learning techniques to detect individual coral colonies. We compared two deep learning models, FasterRCNN and MaskRCNN, and found that the models achieved accuracy shores up to 0.78. These scores improved when examining only larger corals in shallow waters. The model was able to both detect Elkhorn coral and distinguish it from other corals and features. This will be a useful method for measuring coral abundance and monitoring the success of restoration efforts.
","abstract_html":"<p>Elkhorn coral, or <em>Acropora palmata</em>, is an important reef building species that promotes species abundance and other ecological services to the communities in the US Virgin Islands. We captured high resolution imagery of a reef in St. Croix’s East End Marine Park using a Wingtra One UAV. We then used deep learning techniques to detect individual coral colonies. We compared two deep learning models, FasterRCNN and MaskRCNN, and found that the models achieved accuracy shores up to 0.78. These scores improved when examining only larger corals in shallow waters. The model was able to both detect Elkhorn coral and distinguish it from other corals and features. This will be a useful method for measuring coral abundance and monitoring the success of restoration efforts.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Wyatt, Samuel"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Science (MS)","degree_level":"Masters Thesis","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["George Raber","Gregory Carter","Steve Schill"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022-04-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2022-04-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:45:33Z","subjects":["Coral","Deep Learning","Remote Sensing","Object Detection","Marine","Geographic Information Sciences","Marine Biology","Physical and Environmental Geography"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/886","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["George Raber","Gregory Carter","Steve Schill"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Wyatt, Samuel"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2022-06-01T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Masters Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Science (MS)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Coral","Deep Learning","Remote Sensing","Object Detection","Marine","Geographic Information Sciences","Marine Biology","Physical and Environmental Geography"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/886"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Elkhorn coral, or Acropora palmata, is an important reef building species that promotes species abundance and other ecological services to the communities in the US Virgin Islands. We captured high resolution imagery of a reef in St. Croix’s East End Marine Park using a Wingtra One UAV. We then used deep learning techniques to detect individual coral colonies. We compared two deep learning models, FasterRCNN and MaskRCNN, and found that the models achieved accuracy shores up to 0.78. These scores improved when examining only larger corals in shallow waters. The model was able to both detect Elkhorn coral and distinguish it from other corals and features. This will be a useful method for measuring coral abundance and monitoring the success of restoration efforts.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["USING DEEP LEARNING AND UAV IMAGERY TO DETECT ELKHORN CORAL IN ST. CROIX’S EAST END MARINE PARK"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["George Raber","Gregory Carter","Steve Schill"],"dc:creator":["Wyatt, Samuel"],"dc:date.available":["2022-06-01T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["Elkhorn coral, or Acropora palmata, is an important reef building species that promotes species abundance and other ecological services to the communities in the US Virgin Islands. We captured high resolution imagery of a reef in St. Croix’s East End Marine Park using a Wingtra One UAV. We then used deep learning techniques to detect individual coral colonies. We compared two deep learning models, FasterRCNN and MaskRCNN, and found that the models achieved accuracy shores up to 0.78. These scores improved when examining only larger corals in shallow waters. The model was able to both detect Elkhorn coral and distinguish it from other corals and features. This will be a useful method for measuring coral abundance and monitoring the success of restoration efforts.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/886"],"dc:subject":["Coral","Deep Learning","Remote Sensing","Object Detection","Marine","Geographic Information Sciences","Marine Biology","Physical and Environmental Geography"],"dc:title":["USING DEEP LEARNING AND UAV IMAGERY TO DETECT ELKHORN CORAL IN ST. CROIX’S EAST END MARINE PARK"],"thesis:degree_level":["Masters Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Science (MS)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:45:33Z"}