Opportunities and challenges for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity in the robotics age

Abstract

With biodiversity loss escalating globally, a step change is needed in our capacity to accurately monitor species populations across ecosystems. Robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) offer technological solutions that may substantially advance terrestrial biodiversity monitoring, but this potential is yet to be considered systematically. We used a modified Delphi technique to synthesize knowledge from 98 biodiversity experts and 31 RAS experts, who identified the major methodological barriers that currently hinder monitoring, and explored the opportunities and challenges that RAS offer in overcoming these barriers. Biodiversity experts identified four barrier categories: site access, species and individual identification, data handling and storage, and power and network availability. Robotics experts highlighted technologies that could overcome these barriers and identified the developments needed to facilitate RAS-based autonomous biodiversity monitoring. Some existing RAS could be optimized relatively easily to survey species but would require development to be suitable for monitoring of more ‘difficult’ taxa and robust enough to work under uncontrolled conditions within ecosystems. Other nascent technologies (for instance, new sensors and biodegradable robots) need accelerated research. Overall, it was felt that RAS could lead to major progress in monitoring of terrestrial biodiversity by supplementing rather than supplanting existing methods. Transdisciplinarity needs to be fostered between biodiversity and RAS experts so that future ideas and technologies can be codeveloped effectively.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Pringle, S. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9207-6827 Dallimer, M. Goddard, M.A. Le Goff, L.K. Hart, E. Langdale, S.J. Fisher, J.C. Abad, S.-A. Ancrenaz, M. Angeoletto, F. Auat Cheein, F. Austen, G.E. Bailey, J.J. Baldock, K.C.R. Banin, L.F. Banks-Leite, C. Barau, A.S. Bashyal, R. Bates, A.J. Bicknell, J.E. Bielby, J. Bosilj, P. Bush, E.R. Butler, S.J. Carpenter, D. Clements, C.F. Cully, A. Davies, K.F. Deere, N.J. Dodd, M. Drinkwater, R. Driscoll, D.A. Dutilleux, G. Dyrmann, M. Edwards, D.P. Farhadinia, M.S. Faruk, A. Field, R. Fletcher, R.J. Foster, C.W. Fox, R. Francksen, R.M. Franco, A.M.A. Gainsbury, A.M. Gardner, C.J. Giorgi, I. Griffiths, R.A. Hamaza, S. Hanheide, M. Hayward, M.W. Hedblom, M. Helgason, T. Heon, S.P. Hughes, K.A. Hunt, E.R. Ingram, D.J. Jackson-Mills, G. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4156-0955 Jowett, K. Keitt, T.H. Kloepper, L.N. Kramer-Schadt, S. Labisko, J. Labrosse, F. Lawson, J. Lecomte, N. de Lima, R.F. Littlewood, N.A. Marshall, H.H. Masala, G.L. Maskell, L.C. Matechou, E. Mazzolai, B. McConnell, A. Melbourne, B.A. Miriyev, A. Nana, E.D. Ossola, A. Papworth, S. Parr, C.L. Payo-Payo, A. Perry, G. Pettorelli, N. Pillay, R. Potts, S.G. Prendergast-Miller, M.T. Qie, L. Rolley-Parnell, P. Rossiter, S.J. Rowcliffe, M. Rumble, H. Sadler, J.P. Sandom, C.J. Sanyal, A. Schrodt, F. Sethi, S.S. Shabrani, A. Siddall, R. Smith, S.C. Snep, R.P.H. Soulsbury, C.D. Stanley, M.C. Stephens, P.A. Stephenson, P.J. Struebig, M.J. Studley, M. Svátek, M. Tang, G. Taylor, N.K. Umbers, K.D.L. Ward, R.J. White, P.J.C. Whittingham, M.J. Wich, S. Williams, C.D. Yakubu, I.B. Yoh, N. Zaidi, S.A.R. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1969-3727 Zmarz, A. Zwerts, J.A. Davies, Z.G.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Dates:	Accepted: 7 April 2025 Published (online): 22 May 2025 Published: June 2025
Institution:	The University of Leeds
Academic Units:	The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Electronic & Electrical Engineering (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mechanical Engineering (Leeds)
Date Deposited:	28 Nov 2025 13:10
Last Modified:	28 Nov 2025 13:10
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Springer Nature
Identification Number:	10.1038/s41559-025-02704-9
Related URLs:	Author Dataset
Sustainable Development Goals:
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:234739