Are invasive mosquitofish afraid of robotic predators? – Study featured in The New York Times

In the new paper “Ecology of fear in highly invasive fish revealed by robots”, led by Dr. Giovanni Polverino from University of Western Australia and with our own Ph.D. candidate Mert Karakaya and Prof. Maurizio Porfiri, a new ethorobotics paradigm for the control of highly invasive species is proposed.

Specifically, the Authors used bioinspired robotic predators to selectively target invasive fish while protecting native amphibians threatened by the invasive species. These attacks generated stress in the invasive fish, affecting their behavior and undermining their health and reproduction. This new approach can help mitigate the disruption of natural ecosystems by invasive species through novel, smart robots.

Read the full paper published in iScience by Cell Press here.
 

The research has also been covered by a variety of media outlets:

The New York Times “How to Scare an Invasive Fish? A Menacing Robot Predator” – read here.

Smithsonian Magazine “Robotic Fish Are This Invasive Species’ ‘Worst Nightmare’” – read here.

CNet “Robotic fish designed to terrorize invasive species passes initial tests” – read here.

Bioengineer.com “Robots use fear to fight invasive fish” – read here.

Fuentitech.com “Horrible robots can stop the invading mosquitofish” – read here.

Eureka Alert! “Robots use fear to fight invasive fish” – read here.

ScienceNews.org “A terrifying robot can thwart invasive mosquito fish” – read here.

ScienceTimes “Engineered Robot Scares Invasive Mosquitofish, Saves Freshwater Fishes and Tadpoles” – read here.

PhysOrg “Robots use fear to fight invasive fish” – read here.

PopularScience “Need to fight invasive fish? Just introduce a scary robot” – read here.

 

Image credit: Giovanni Polverino.