Planktopedia: A new Plankton Identification helping Tool

The flourishing subjects like marine biology, Marine science as well as Oceanography need to identify plankton from its collected samples from oceans and seas. The researchers often use the references from books written by previous researchers and scientists. They also browse many websites for similar plankton photos to identify them by matching with their samples.

Considering a big world with full of different countries, all kinds of identification tools like every books and internet facilities are not available in every educational as well as research institute related to marine ecology. To improve these situations, a collection of identified plankton with their related picture was recent demand.

Introducing Planktopedia (an android based offline application) which was launched worldwide as a demo project for getting reviews from users. It will launch with more update at the end of this year from Tianjin University of Science and Technology, China. Professor Dr. Sun Jun is the main supervisor of this venture. In China, a Bangladeshi PhD student, M Shahanul Islam; is working now on its upgradation. A Bangladeshi android programmer Mahmudul Hasan is primarily appointed for assembling codes.

This mobile application is capable of using low storage of mobile memory and user can download all the picture without internet for further use; only in research or non-profitable purpose. With a fastest searching system and swiping capability, the identification of plankton will be faster and easier for researchers rather than browsing internets or books.

It was a soul idea from M Shahanul Islam wile working on his PhD research related to plankton. In April 2018, he expressed his idea with proper presentation to his respected supervisor for help and sponsorship. By understanding the application and demand of this venture, his supervisor gave him the permission and necessary equipment with samples for this mobile application. The structural view of Planktopedia has been lunched in 7 May 2018. They hope that Planktopedia will be at its minimum working mode at the end of this year. The experimental version was already being downloaded from Google play store by various researchers of different countries like UK, USA, France, Spain etc.   Courage and well-wishing comments from mass people will help them to move forward and built Planktopedia at its high.