Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute, MITRE Builds Living Ocean Atlas

Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute (GMGI) is partnering with MITRE in its effort to build a Living Ocean Atlas, one that can show where marine life is now and predict how it will change, a concept GMGI describes as “Google Maps for the ocean.”

The two organizations have signed a research agreement to jointly develop The Virtual Living Ocean. It will combine years of environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling by GMGI, a nonprofit based in Gloucester, Massachusetts, that addresses challenges facing oceans, human health, and the environment through innovative scientific research and education, with MITRE’s expertise in ocean technology and large-scale data systems. MITRE is a nonprofit headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, and McLean, Virginia, which operates federally funded research centers for the U.S. government. Its BlueTech Lab in Bedford researches ocean technology, including autonomous underwater vehicles, underwater acoustics, and systems engineering and integration to enable systems to better understand the world’s oceans.  

The Virtual Living Ocean’s foundation is the Living Ocean Atlas, a database combining eDNA data with physical and chemical ocean data, including temperature, pH and satellite imagery. GMGI has begun building the Atlas in an area it has sampled seasonally for years at Stellwagen National Marine Sanctuary in the North Atlantic Ocean and other coastal sites. With The Virtual Living Ocean, the plan is to deepen these studies and expand them to other regions.

To collect eDNA, researchers take samples of ocean water and test them for genetic material that fish and other marine organisms shed into their surroundings, such as skin cells, scales and waste, revealing which species have been present without needing to see or catch them. Recent advances studying genetic material through genomic testing and artificial intelligence now make it possible to combine that data at the scale required to build a living model of an ecosystem.

Designed for public and scientific use, potential applications of The Virtual Living Ocean include fisheries management, resilience and conservation planning, early detection of invasive species, biomedical research, and more. Once complete, it will also help to visualize ocean biodiversity, animal migration, and other changes over time in order to predict significant ocean trends with weather, human activity, and the overall changing ecosystem.

To create The Virtual Living Ocean, MITRE brings experience with system architecture, data analysis, visualizations, simulation, and digital twins, virtual models that mirror a real-world system and update in real time as new data comes in.

The Virtual Living Ocean’s success will depend on the participation of many partners, studying and sampling the ocean all over the region. One aspect that MITRE has developed through grant funding from Mass Tech Collaborative is the utilization of “Blue IVI Network,” an unclassified, secure network that allows partners to share data, as it would for The Virtual Living Ocean. Thus far, about 11 institutions are part of the network including academic, research, and defense organizations.