AntMatcher
- automated ant identification system - was born from my PhD struggle to
identify Malagasy ants and from Eli Parviainen's genius to make computers do things she
wants them to do.
For my PhD, I need to identify tones of ants
collected in Madagascar. I was getting rather stressed that I will never be
able to recognize them. The identification was just too time consuming. To
identify one ant you need to check a number of different characters on various
parts of the body using ant identification keys or the amazing AntWeb. Even
though, if you are not professional ant taxonomist to identify one ant can take
you a day(s). Seeing that this process is extremely slow, I started to think
would there be an easier way to read all those characters. I thought:
"could a computer read all these characters?" I noticed that many
characters to recognize an ant species are used from head characters (of course
not all, but quite many). Naturally, I started to think if only ant head could
be used to identify an ant. I imagined how great it could be if you could snap
a head image of an ant, upload it online, match your picture with AntWeb images
and a computer would tell you what that ant is! Everyone is happy;
I am happy I have a name, ant is happy to continue its errands without being
marinated in ethanol. I knew there must be an easier way to perform routine ant
identification, but how to do that was still a mystery. All these ideas, however, remained my dreams for some time. I continued to spend countless hours
identifying ants one by one. With no background in programming or any kind of
software knowledge, my ideas would always have remained plans. I knew I needed
someone who can make computers “see” and “talk”.
I was
fortunate enough and the event called BCH "Connecting scientists" vol2 (2012) reached my ears. The event was aiming in connecting biologists
with more technology-oriented people. After my three minute talk, I discussed my idea with
different people, but not much interest around. I was not a surprise though. People there were talking brains and things; me, I was running and trying to
sell ants. However, I still had one person behind my sleeve I really wanted to
talk to. I read Eli Parviainen’s profile before coming to the meeting and I
thought she would be an interesting person to talk with. Finally, I had a
chance to talk with here and I my judgment was absolutely right. Her enthusiasm
and interest in the idea, and her zeal for a color splotches brought us where
we are with the project now. We are preparing a manuscript, we have published
an online system were you can actually try the identification.
Meeting Eli was great blessing. No, it didn’t solve
my PhD problem, I still have piles of identified ants. You also can’t yet use AntMatcher to have 100% accuracy ant
identification yet. However, in its infancy
phase, the program can help you to make AntWeb database more manageable,
especially if you just starting identification for the first time in your
life. AntMatcher can narrow down your
search to for example 15 closest genus/species matches. This is something
manageable compared with for example a million possible matches directly in
AntWeb. Our system in future could also be successfully employed in for
example insect collection inventory or pest management programs. The program will improve identification
accuracy with more and more ant images added to AntWeb. The more training
images available, the better results you will get from the AntMatcher.
AntMatcher currently uses ant head images to
identify ants, but we understand the importance of adding other parts of ant
body to increase identification accuracy. Eli is also developing and improving
the classifier, which in future will allow to improve identification and to add
new features. Most importantly, AntMatcher is an open source program, so that
means that each of you can help to improve it. There are a million ways to do
so. If you need ideas how you could help, please write us an email or check Help us page. You can also contribute to the improvement of AntMatcher by simply using it and sending us feedback. Together, let’s save insects and let’s make science
move forward with technology.
Silvija Budaviciute
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