It is hoped that the photo-documentation being collected will help scientists learn more about coral bleaching as well as species variability and behavior within the area.

AIMS spokesman Dr Ray Berkelmans says it is a technological first.

“It’s trained on a coral bommie (pictured above) with some lovely plate corals and really the idea for this camera is to give us real time feedback as to what the conditions of the corals are,” he said.

“We’ve been very good at and very sophisticated at predicting coral bleaching but what we don’t have is real time feedback of what the corals are actually doing so this is kind of closing the loop for us.”

The researchers have also made the entire photo collection freely available online. Photos are taken every 15 minutes and then placed online for everyone to see.

(via ABC News)