In 2016, a bright yellow robot began moving up and down the Great Barrier Reef, hunting down a particular type of starfish and moving in for the kill: After the robot injects the animal with poison, it dies within a day.

The starfish feeds on coral, and even though the animal is native to the reef, an out-of-control population has made it a threat to the reef’s survival. In theory, the robot, which is still in development but has been successful in pilot tests, can help solve the problem. It’s one example a growing number of bots designed to reshape ecology.

An upcoming journal article asks how automation might ultimately go further: A “wildness creator” might create and maintain “wild” places without any human intervention.

[Photo: bennymarty/iStock]

“We focused on this idea of wildness because it seems like it’s an interesting way of, in a way, poking back at what we think nature is,” Bradley Cantrell, an associate professor of landscape architectural technology at Harvard Graduate School of Design and TED fellow, who worked on the research with ecologist Erle Ellis and environmental historian Laura Martin, tells Co.Exist. “Could there be wildness that’s highly managed through technology?”

Because of the scale of human impacts on ecology–from building cities and razing forests for agriculture to pollution and climate change–ecological restoration and conservation is also becoming increasingly difficult to manage. Automation might help.

The paper looks at several examples of semi-autonomous ecological projects that are already happening or in development. One startup is using drones to replant trees at rates faster than humans could. A “virtual fence” along Australian roads automatically warns wildlife when a car is coming. MIT is developing swarming robots that could clean up oil spills.

Other projects are using technology to monitor wilderness and human impacts; drones can detect early-stage wildfires, track wildlife populations or pollution, or catch poachers. Satellites can track illegal fishing boats and illegal deforestation.