Last week, some of the world's leading biodiversity researchers gathered in Rio de Janeiro. There, they took part in the award ceremony of the XPRIZE Rainforest competition – one of the world's largest science competitions.

One of the research teams in the running for the prizes had several skilled researchers from Aarhus University on board.

Associate Professor Claus Melvad from the Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering and Professor Toke Thomas Høye from the Department of Ecoscience, along with their respective research groups, took part in inventing a technology that won one of the prizes.

The group developed a kind of umbrella to be airlifted into the Amazon by a drone and dropped into the canopy of the tall tropical trees. Up there, the device films, listens and measures all the animals in the vicinity.

Living in the canopy are many undiscovered species, but researchers are in a hurry if they are to map all of them because the rainforest is disappearing at an alarming rate. In addition, the treetops are quite inaccessible to the researchers who explore the rainforest.

- The treetops are a blind spot for us biodiversity researchers. It is difficult to climb up there, so we actually know very little about what lives in the foliage. That's why we developed this technology, says Toke Thomas Høye.

And the invention has already proven its worth. During the competition, the researchers discovered 40 new species of insects in the few treetops where the device was deployed.

With the prize comes almost 1 million kroner, which the group can use to continue the project – and there is already great interest in the technology, Toke Thomas Høye explains.

- We are talking to people in both Central Africa and Columbia, who are very interested. Both places have large areas of rainforest, and our technology could possibly make a big difference there, he says.

The project – in which the Danish researchers participated – is called ETH BiodivX. It was led by researchers from Switzerland and it was the Swiss researchers who, almost five years ago, tapped Toke Thomas Høye on the shoulder to ask for his help.

- They asked me if I would participate in the project and the competition because of my experience with image recognition of species and interpretation of biodiversity data. It sounded exciting, so I contacted Claus Melvad, who I know is super skilled at building and developing new technologies.

- Although we are from two different institutes, our research groups have worked in parallel throughout this project, and it has been incredibly rewarding. In fact, I would say that it's one of the things we are good at here at Aarhus University: working together across disciplines.

Claus Melvad's team built both a rover that drove around the rainforest in Singapore collecting samples and the platform for the treetops. The latter was certainly not an easy task.

- The device couldn't be too heavy, because it had to be flown in by drone and placed gently in the treetops. Nor too light, or it would blow away. So we designed it to be deployed like a net-umbrella with a pole into the crown, says Claus Melvad, continuing:

- Designed like this it sat stably in the branches collecting samples without moving too much. And it was possible for the drone to pick it up again and fly it back to camp.

On Friday, November 15, the prizes were awarded in Rio de Janeiro. The Danish team received a prize of $250,000. They didn't win the first prize, but were recognized with a special prize for their important technology.