Please wait a minute...
Journal of Arid Land  2022, Vol. 14 Issue (12): 1440-1455    DOI: 10.1007/s40333-022-0086-9     CSTR: 32276.14.s40333-022-0086-9
Research article     
Image recognition and empirical application of desert plant species based on convolutional neural network
LI Jicai1, SUN Shiding2, JIANG Haoran2, TIAN Yingjie1,3,4,*(), XU Xiaoliang5
1School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
2School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
3Key Laboratory of Big Data Mining and Knowledge Management, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
4Research Center on Fictitious Economy and Data Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
5Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
Download: HTML     PDF(2331KB)
Export: BibTeX | EndNote (RIS)      

Abstract  

In recent years, deep convolution neural network has exhibited excellent performance in computer vision and has a far-reaching impact. Traditional plant taxonomic identification requires high expertise, which is time-consuming. Most nature reserves have problems such as incomplete species surveys, inaccurate taxonomic identification, and untimely updating of status data. Simple and accurate recognition of plant images can be achieved by applying convolutional neural network technology to explore the best network model. Taking 24 typical desert plant species that are widely distributed in the nature reserves in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China as the research objects, this study established an image database and select the optimal network model for the image recognition of desert plant species to provide decision support for fine management in the nature reserves in Xinjiang, such as species investigation and monitoring, by using deep learning. Since desert plant species were not included in the public dataset, the images used in this study were mainly obtained through field shooting and downloaded from the Plant Photo Bank of China (PPBC). After the sorting process and statistical analysis, a total of 2331 plant images were finally collected (2071 images from field collection and 260 images from the PPBC), including 24 plant species belonging to 14 families and 22 genera. A large number of numerical experiments were also carried out to compare a series of 37 convolutional neural network models with good performance, from different perspectives, to find the optimal network model that is most suitable for the image recognition of desert plant species in Xinjiang. The results revealed 24 models with a recognition Accuracy, of greater than 70.000%. Among which, Residual Network X_8GF (RegNetX_8GF) performs the best, with Accuracy, Precision, Recall, and F1 (which refers to the harmonic mean of the Precision and Recall values) values of 78.33%, 77.65%, 69.55%, and 71.26%, respectively. Considering the demand factors of hardware equipment and inference time, Mobile NetworkV2 achieves the best balance among the Accuracy, the number of parameters and the number of floating-point operations. The number of parameters for Mobile Network V2 (MobileNetV2) is 1/16 of RegNetX_8GF, and the number of floating-point operations is 1/24. Our findings can facilitate efficient decision-making for the management of species survey, cataloging, inspection, and monitoring in the nature reserves in Xinjiang, providing a scientific basis for the protection and utilization of natural plant resources.



Key wordsdesert plants      image recognition      deep learning      convolutional neural network      Residual Network X_8GF (RegNetX_8GF)      Mobile Network V2 (MobileNetV2)      nature reserves     
Received: 01 September 2022      Published: 31 December 2022
Corresponding Authors: *TIAN Yingjie (E-mail: tyj@ucas.ac.cn)
Cite this article:

LI Jicai, SUN Shiding, JIANG Haoran, TIAN Yingjie, XU Xiaoliang. Image recognition and empirical application of desert plant species based on convolutional neural network. Journal of Arid Land, 2022, 14(12): 1440-1455.

URL:

http://jal.xjegi.com/10.1007/s40333-022-0086-9     OR     http://jal.xjegi.com/Y2022/V14/I12/1440

Fig. 1 Overview of Xinjiang and spatial distribution of nature reserves in Xinjiang. Note that the figure is based on the standard map (新S(2021)023) of the Map Service System (https://xinjiang.tianditu.gov.cn/main/bzdt.html) marked by the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Platform for Common Geospatial Information Services, and the standard map has not been modified. Satellite image source: Geospatial Data Cloud (http://www.gscloud.cn/).
Fig. 2 Images of the selected 24 desert plant species in nature reserves in Xinjiang
Species name Family Genera Life form Protection category Field images Total images
Ephedra intermedia
(00001)
Ephedraceae Ephedra Shrub Second-class national protected plant in China 100 114
Iljinia regelii
(00002)
Chenopodiaceae Iljinia Subshrub - 50 54
Corydalis kashgarica
(00003)
Papaveraceae Corydalis Perennial
herb
- 70 94
Zygophyllum kaschgaricum (00004) Zygophyllaceae Zygophyllum Shrub Second-class protected plant in Xinjiang, China 80 100
Ammopiptanthus nanus
(00005)
Fabaceae Ammopiptanthus Shrub Second-class national protected plant in China 70 73
Oxytropis bogdoschanica
(00006)
Fabaceae Oxytropis Perennial
herb
- 90 96
Caragana polourensis
(00007)
Fabaceae Caragana Shrub - 70 90
Glycyrrhiza inflate
(00008)
Fabaceae Glycyrrhiza Perennial
herb
Second-class national protected plant in China 50 72
Ammodendron bifolium
(00009)
Fabaceae Ammodendron Shrub First-class protected plant in Xinjiang, China 15 16
Eremosparton songoricum
(00010)
Fabaceae Eremosparton Shrub Second-class protected plant in Xinjiang, China 30 33
Lagochilus lanatonodus
(00011)
Lamiaceae Lagochilus Perennial
herb
- 30 33
Frankenia pulverulenta
(00012)
Frankeniaceae Frankenia Annual herb Second-class national protected plant in China 20 32
Salsola junatovii (00013) Chenopodiaceae Salsola Subshrub - 105 148
Gymnocarpos przewalskii
(00014)
Caryophyllaceae Gymnocarpos Subshrub First-class national protected plant in China 100 112
Helianthemum songaricum (00015) Cistaceae Helianthemum. Shrub Second-class national protected plant in China 125 125
Haloxylon persicum
(00016)
Chenopodiaceae Haloxylon Tree Second-class national protected plant in China 60 63
Caryopteris mongholica
(00017)
Verbenaceae Caryopteris Shrub - 130 149
Populus pruinosa
(00018)
Salicaceae Populus Tree First-class protected plant in Xinjiang, China 50 50
Tamarix taklamakanensis
(00019)
Tamaricaceae Tamarix Shrub Second-class national protected plant in China 151 151
Cistanche deserticola
(00020)
Orobanchaceae Cistanche Perennial
herb
Second-class national protected plant in China 100 114
Calligonum ebinuricum
(00021)
Polygonaceae Calligonum Shrub Second-class protected plant in Xinjiang, China 105 105
Prunus tenella
(00022)
Rosaceae Prunus Tree First-class protected plant in Xinjiang, China 20 31
Haloxylon ammodendron
(00023)
Chenopodiaceae Haloxylon Tree Second-class national protected plant in China 220 227
Populus euphratica
(00024)
Salicaceae Populus Tree - 230 249
Table 1 Basic information of the selected 24 desert plant species in nature reserves in Xinjiang
Fig. 3 Schematic diagram of convolutional neural network
Model Accuracy (%) Precision (%) Recall (%) F1 (%) Params (M) FLOPs (G)
VGG11 69.286 68.746 59.769 61.909 128.865 7.613
VGG13 67.857 64.700 58.584 58.310 129.049 11.317
VGG16 65.952 57.170 51.073 51.356 134.359 15.480
VGG19 66.667 67.341 54.269 56.148 139.669 19.643
ResNet18 72.857 75.693 61.621 64.463 11.189 1.819
ResNet34 72.857 74.432 61.448 64.091 21.297 3.671
ResNet50 73.333 69.447 63.473 65.239 23.557 4.110
ResNext50_32_4×D 72.857 71.907 61.531 63.486 23.029 4.257
ResNet101 73.095 66.146 60.646 61.639 42.549 7.832
ResNext101_32_8×D 72.857 73.280 61.886 63.927 86.792 16.475
DenseNet121 65.000 58.949 53.998 54.663 6.978 2.865
DenseNet169 65.476 55.327 54.604 53.783 12.524 3.396
DenseNet201 65.952 59.139 58.259 57.824 18.139 4.339
SqueezeNet1_0 54.286 35.847 34.203 33.751 0.748 0.739
SqueezeNet1_1 53.095 37.520 35.006 33.772 0.735 0.267
MobileNetV2 71.429 64.504 59.919 60.613 2.255 0.313
MobileNetV3-Small 61.429 56.082 51.884 52.685 1.542 0.058
MobileNetV3-Large 64.286 60.755 55.215 56.053 4.233 0.224
ShuffleNetV2_X0_5 53.095 30.013 33.321 30.101 0.366 0.042
ShuffleNetV2_X1_0 60.476 35.104 40.711 36.959 1.278 0.148
EfficientNet_B0 73.810 67.480 62.850 63.810 4.038 0.400
EfficientNet_B1 75.238 75.122 64.517 66.999 6.544 0.591
EfficientNet_B2 74.286 70.714 64.487 66.095 7.735 0.681
EfficientNet_B3 75.714 72.308 65.204 66.359 10.733 0.992
EfficientNet_B4 72.381 68.769 64.278 64.878 17.592 1.543
RegNetX_400MF 76.429 73.074 67.472 68.470 5.105 0.420
RegNetX_800MF 75.000 72.684 65.218 67.185 6.603 0.809
RegNetX_1_6GF 73.333 70.136 64.869 66.038 8.299 1.618
RegNetX_3_2GF 75.000 70.812 64.682 65.630 14.312 3.198
RegNetX_8GF 78.333 77.654 69.547 71.256 37.698 8.021
RegNetX_16GF 75.714 75.210 64.439 66.525 52.279 15.990
RegNetY_400MF 74.762 72.230 65.505 67.071 3.914 0.410
RegNetY_800MF 74.286 70.751 64.156 65.073 5.666 0.845
RegNetY_1_6GF 73.571 70.069 63.407 64.851 10.335 1.629
RegNetY_3_2GF 76.191 70.237 65.338 65.848 17.960 3.200
RegNetY_8GF 74.762 70.841 64.068 64.830 37.413 8.515
RegNetY_16GF 75.000 73.363 66.207 68.029 80.638 15.960
Table 2 Experimental results of 37 different models used in the image recognition of desert plant species
Fig. 4 Relationships of the Accuracy with the number of parameters (a) and the number of floating-point operations (b) for 37 different models used in the image recognition of desert plant species. M, megabyte, which refers to the storage space occupied by model parameters (1 M=1024 kilobytes); G, model operation speed (1 G=109/s). VGG, Visual Geometry Group Network; ResNet, Residual Network; DenseNet, Dense Convolutional Network; SqueezeNet, Squeeze Network; MobileNet, Mobile Network; ShuffleNet, Shuffle Network; EfficientNet, Efficient Network; RegNet, Residual Network.
Species name MobileNetV2 RegNetX_8GF
Precision (%) Recall
(%)
F1
(%)
Precision (%) Recall
(%)
F1
(%)
Ephedra intermedia (00001) 68.182 68.182 68.182 76.923 90.909 83.333
Iljinia regelii (00002) 60.000 54.546 57.143 66.667 54.546 60.000
Corydalis kashgarica (00003) 75.000 46.154 57.143 100.000 38.462 55.556
Zygophyllum kaschgaricum (00004) 43.750 43.750 43.750 60.000 93.750 73.171
Ammopiptanthus nanus (00005) 90.909 83.333 86.957 73.333 91.667 81.482
Oxytropis bogdoschanica (00006) 58.333 70.000 63.636 50.000 50.000 50.000
Caragana polourensis (00007) 52.632 71.429 60.606 76.923 71.429 74.074
Glycyrrhiza inflata (00008) 80.000 61.539 69.565 80.000 61.539 69.565
Ammodendron bifolium (00009) 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
Eremosparton songoricum (00010) 100.000 33.333 50.000 100.000 33.333 50.000
Lagochilus lanatonodus (00011) 75.000 50.000 60.000 83.333 83.333 83.333
Frankenia pulverulenta (00012) 0.000 0.000 0.000 100.000 50.000 66.667
Salsola junatovii (00013) 51.220 75.000 60.870 78.261 64.286 70.588
Gymnocarpos przewalskii (00014) 72.727 76.191 74.419 78.261 85.714 81.818
Helianthemum songaricum (000015) 95.833 92.000 93.878 100.000 88.000 93.617
Haloxyon persicum (00016) 25.000 10.000 14.286 50.000 50.000 50.000
Caryopteris mongholica (00017) 82.857 82.857 82.857 85.714 85.714 85.714
Populus pruinosa (00018) 50.000 30.000 37.500 100.000 50.000 66.667
Tamarix taklamakanensis (00019) 73.077 73.077 73.077 73.077 73.077 73.077
Cistanche deserticola (00020) 95.238 90.909 93.023 95.455 95.455 95.455
Calligonum ebinuricum (00021) 75.000 57.143 64.865 80.952 80.952 80.952
Prunus tenella (00022) 75.000 100.000 85.714 100.000 100.000 100.000
Haloxylon ammodendron (00023) 75.000 75.000 75.000 70.175 83.333 76.191
Populus euphratica (00024) 73.333 93.617 82.243 84.615 93.617 88.889
Table 3 Classification results of MobileNetV2 and RegNetX_8G in the image recognition of desert plant species
Fig. 5 Confusion matrix of MobileNetV2 (a) and RegNetX_8GF (b) in the image recognition of desert plant species. The plant species corresponding to the labels are consistent with those in Figure 2.
Fig. 6 Images of incorrectly classified samples with high similarity of external morphological features
Model Tianchi Bogda Peak Nature Reserve
Accuracy (%) Precision (%) Recall (%) F1 (%)
MobileNetV2 83.871 90.516 83.987 86.715
RegNetX_8GF 86.559 95.299 88.644 91.508
MobileNetV2 64.865 71.466 69.065 68.123
RegNetX_8GF 60.360 77.317 63.309 67.368
Table 4 Performances of empirical application of MobileNetV2 and RegNetX_8GF in the image recognition of desert plant species in the Tianchi Bogda Peak Nature Reserve and Ebinur Lake Wetland National Nature Reserve
[1]   Abdullahi H S, Sheriff R E, Mahieddine F. 2017. Convolution neural network in precision agriculture for plant image recognition and classification. In: 2017 Seventh International Conference on Innovative Computing Technology (INTECH). New York: IEEE, 10: 256-272.
[2]   Barbedo J G. 2016. A review on the main challenges in automatic plant disease identification based on visible range images. Biosystems Engineering, 144: 52-60.
doi: 10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2016.01.017
[3]   Bargoti S, Underwood J. 2017. Deep fruit detection in orchards. In: 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). New York: IEEE, doi: 10.48550/arXiv.1610.03677.
doi: 10.48550/arXiv.1610.03677
[4]   Bekker A J, Goldberger J. 2016. Training deep neural-networks based on unreliable labels. In: 2016 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP). New York: IEEE,2682-2686.
[5]   Cai Z. 2020. Research on deep learning model for Chinese herbal medicine planting process. MSc Thesis. Chengdu: University of Electronic Science and technology. (in Chinese)
[6]   Cao X J, Mo Y, Yan Y L. 2020. Convolutional neural network flower image recognition using transfer learning. Computer Applications and Software, 37(8): 142-148. (in Chinese)
[7]   Cao X Y, Sun W M, Zhu Y X, et al. 2018. Plant image recognition based on family priority strategy. Journal of Computer Applications, 38(11): 3241-3245. (in Chinese)
[8]   Coulibaly S, Kamsu F B, Kamissoko D, et al. 2019. Deep neural networks with transfer learning in millet crop images. Computers in Industry, 108: 115-120.
doi: 10.1016/j.compind.2019.02.003
[9]   Gai R L, Cai J R, Wang S Y. 2021. Research review on image recognition based on deep learning. Journal of Chinese Computer Systems, 42(9): 1980-1984. (in Chinese)
[10]   Gao H Y, Gao X H, Feng Q S, et al. 2020. Approach to plant species identification in natural grasslands based on deep learning. Pratacultural Science, 37(9): 1931-1939. (in Chinese)
[11]   Hall D, McCool C, Dayoub F, et al. 2015. Evaluation of features for leaf classification in challenging conditions. In: 2015 IEEE Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision. New York: IEEE, 797-804.
[12]   He K M, Zhang X Y, Ren S Q, et al. 2016. Deep residual learning for image recognition. In: 2016 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR). New York: IEEE,770-778.
[13]   He M Z, Zhang J G, Wang H. 2006. Analysis of branching architecture factors of desert plants. Journal of Desert Research, (4): 625-630. (in Chinese)
[14]   Howard A G, Zhu M L, Chen B, et al. 2017. Efficient convolutional neural networks for mobile vision applications. [2022-09-01]. https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.04861v1.
[15]   Jin L T. 2020. Research on plant image recognition with complex background based on convolution neural network. MSc Thesis. Lanzhou: Lanzhou Jiaotong University. (in Chinese)
[16]   Krizhevsky A, Sutskever I, Hinton G E. 2012. ImageNet classification with deep convolutional neural networks. Advances In Neural Information Processing Systems, 25: 1097-1105.
[17]   Kussul N, Lavreniuk M, Skakun S, et al. 2017. Deep learning classification of land cover and crop types using remote sensing data. In: 2017 IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters. New York: IEEE, 14(5): 778-782.
[18]   Lecun Y, Bengio Y. 1998. Convolutional Networks for Images, Speech, and Time Series. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,255-258.
[19]   Li L P, Shi F P, Tian W B, et al. 2021. Wild Plant Image recognition method based on residual network and transfer learning. Radio Engineering, 51(9): 857-863. (in Chinese)
[20]   Li M M, Xia W C, Wang M, et al. 2020. Research on monitoring of Chinese nature reserves based on bibliometrics. Journal of Ecology, 40(6): 2158-2165. (in Chinese)
[21]   Li X H, Wu Z H, Liu H, et al. 2020. Species recognition of succulent plants based on convolutional neural network model. Journal of Guizhou Normal University, 36(3): 9-15. (in Chinese)
[22]   Li Y F. 2022. Research on image classification based on optimize on factors in convolutional neural network. Journal of Jinling Institute of Technology, 38(1): 26-31. (in Chinese)
[23]   Liu F Z, Du J H, Zhou Y, et al. 2018. Biodiversity monitoring technology and practice in nature reserves combining UAV and ground. Biodiversity, 26(8): 905-917. (in Chinese)
[24]   Liu H S. 2020. Panoramic plant recognition method based on CNN and GLCM fusion discrimination. MSc Thesis. Wuhan: Hubei University of Technology. (in Chinese)
[25]   Liu Y. 2018. Research on plant recognition based on deep learning. Beijing: Beijing Forestry University. (in Chinese)
[26]   Liu Y, Luo Z. 2019. Species recognition of protected area based on AutoML. Computer Systems & Applications, 28(9): 147-153. (in Chinese)
[27]   Mikolov T, Deo R A, Povey D, et al. 2011. Strategies for training large scale neural network language models. In: 2011 IEEE Workshop on Automatic Speech Recognition & Understanding. New York: IEEE, 196-201.
[28]   Ming Y. 2021. The adjusted "List of National Key Protected Wild Plants" was officially announced. Green China, (19): 74-79. (in Chinese)
[29]   Shen T M J. 2021. Video denoising based on prior information and convolutional neural network. MSc Thesis. Chengdu: University of Electronic Science and technology. (in Chinese)
[30]   Simonyan K, Zisserman A. 2014. Very deep convolutional networks for large-scale image recognition. [2022-09-01]. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.1556.pdf.
[31]   Su H M, Niu S M. 2016. Color Atlas of Wild Vascular Bundle Plants in Bogda Biosphere. Beijing: China Forestry Press,10-95. (in Chinese)
[32]   Tang M J. 2020. Research on fast prediction method of ship resistance performance based on convolutional neural network. MSc Thesis. Harbin: Harbin Engineering University. (in Chinese)
[33]   Wang Y W, Tang X L, Xu J P, et al. 2019. The use of big data in nature reserves. China Forestry Economy, (4): 16-20, 27. (in Chinese)
[34]   Xiao Z S. 2019. Application of infrared camera technology in wildlife inventory and assessment of natural reserves in China. Biodiversity, 27(3): 235-236. (in Chinese)
[35]   Xinjiang Flora Editorial Committee. 1992-2004. Xinjiang Flora (Volume I-Volume VI). Urumqi: Xinjiang Science and Technology Press. (in Chinese)
[36]   Yang X D, LV G H, Tian Y H, et al. 2009. Ecological grouping of plants in Lake Abby Wetland Nature Reserve in Xinjiang. Journal of Ecology, 28(12): 2489-2494. (in Chinese)
[37]   Yin L K, Pan B R, Wang Y, et al. 1991. Introduction and cultivation of rare and endangered plants in temperate desert. Arid Zone Research, (2): 1-8. (in Chinese)
[38]   Zhang S, Huai Y J. 2016. Leaf image recognition based on layered convolutions neural network deep learning. Journal of Beijing Forestry University, 38(9): 108-115. (in Chinese)
[1] ZHOU Chongpeng, GONG Lu, WU Xue, LUO Yan. Nutrient resorption and its influencing factors of typical desert plants in different habitats on the northern margin of the Tarim Basin, China[J]. Journal of Arid Land, 2023, 15(7): 858-870.
[2] SUN Liquan, GUO Huili, CHEN Ziyu, YIN Ziming, FENG Hao, WU Shufang, Kadambot H M SIDDIQUE. Check dam extraction from remote sensing images using deep learning and geospatial analysis: A case study in the Yanhe River Basin of the Loess Plateau, China[J]. Journal of Arid Land, 2023, 15(1): 34-51.
[3] WANG Xiaohua, XIAO Honglang, REN Juan, CHENG Yiben, YANG Qiu. An ultrasonic humidification fluorescent tracing method for detecting unsaturated atmospheric water absorption by the aerial parts of desert plants[J]. Journal of Arid Land, 2016, 8(2): 272-283.
[4] Sabitha SAKKIR, Junid N SHAH, Abdul Jaleel CHERUTH, Maher KABSHAWI. Phenology of desert plants from an arid gravel plain in eastern United Arab Emirates[J]. Journal of Arid Land, 2015, 7(1): 54-62.
[5] ZhaoFeng CHANG, ShuJuan ZHU, FuGui HAN, ShengNian ZHONG. Differences in response of desert plants of different ecotypes to climate warming: a case study in Minqin, Northwest China[J]. Journal of Arid Land, 2012, 4(2): 140-150.