We’re the Simmons Lab at the University of Exeter. We use AI and technology to help understand and reverse biodiversity loss.

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Our research sits at the intersection of AI, technology, ecology and conservation. We develop methods for using AI to count nature at scale—and to make those counts trustworthy enough to act on. We do this because conservation depends on knowing where species are, how abundant they are, and whether their populations are declining or recovering, yet for much of biodiversity we still lack even basic monitoring data.

We work with monitoring technologies, such as camera traps and acoustic sensors, using AI to turn large volumes of images and sounds into insights for conservation decision making.

A major focus is making these systems reliable and safe. Biodiversity presents unusual challenges for AI: most species have little training data, models may encounter species they have never seen before, and environmental conditions vary enormously across space and time. Our research embraces these ecological realities, developing AI that is designed for the complexity, uncertainty and variability of the natural world.

Ultimately, our goal is to help build a new generation of trustworthy biodiversity monitoring systems that can provide the robust evidence needed to understand ecological change, evaluate conservation action and support better decisions for nature.