Abstract
AbstractMilkweed (Asclepias spp.) are host plants of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus). It is important to detect milkweed plant locations to assess the status and trends of monarch habitat in support of monarch conservation programs. In this paper, we describe autonomous detection of milkweed plants using cameras mounted to vehicles. For detection, we used both aggregated channel features (ACF) for running the detectors on embedded computing platforms with central processing unit and faster region‐based convolutional neural network (Faster R‐CNN) with a ResNet architecture‐based detector that is suitable for graphics processing unit optimized processing. The ACF‐based model produced 0.89 mean average precision (mAP) on the training dataset and 0.29 mAP on the test dataset, whereas the ResNet‐based Faster R‐CNN model provided 0.98 mAP on training and 0.44 mAP on the test dataset. The detections were used to calculate approximate densities of milkweed plants in geo‐referenced locations based on global positioning system point correspondences of recorded images. Probability‐of‐count distributions are compared for the actual milkweed plant locations near roadsides. This is one of the first examples of using automated milkweed plant detection and density mapping using a vehicle‐mounted camera.
Highlights
The eastern North American population of the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) has declined by 80% over the past two decades (Semmens et al 2016)
The current amount of common milkweed stems in the Midwest is estimated to be approximately 1.3 billion, the majority of which is in publicly owned grasslands; land enrolled in conservation programs, such as the United States Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP); and road rights-of-way (ROWs), which
We collected a variety of ROW images around Ames, Iowa. These roadside images were not used to train the model; that is, the model had no prior information or bias regarding the colors and shapes of milkweed plants recorded in the ROWs
Summary
The eastern North American population of the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) has declined by 80% over the past two decades (Semmens et al 2016). Increasing reproductive success in the Midwest of the United States during the summer is identified as a high priority for monarch conservation (Flockhart et al 2015, Oberhauser et al 2017). To increase monarch populations to a level that would reduce the probability of quasi-extinction by 50% over 20 yr, Pleasants (2017) and Thogmartin et al (2017) estimated that 1.3– 1.6 billion additional milkweed stems need to be added to the landscape in the U.S Midwest. The current amount of common milkweed stems in the Midwest is estimated to be approximately 1.3 billion, the majority of which is in publicly owned grasslands; land enrolled in conservation programs, such as the United States Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP); and road rights-of-way (ROWs), which. Based on landscape-scale modeling (Thogmartin et al 2017, Grant et al 2018), increasing milkweed density in rural road
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