Sustainable Intelligence for the Wild: Democratizing Ecological Monitoring via Knowledge-Adaptive Edge Expert Agents

Li, Jiaxing; Fang, Hao; Xu, Chi; Zhang, Miao; Liu, Jiangchuan; Atlas, William I.; Connors, Katrina M.; Spoljaric, Mark A.

doi:10.24963/ijcai.2026/811

Sustainable Intelligence for the Wild: Democratizing Ecological Monitoring via Knowledge-Adaptive Edge Expert Agents

Jiaxing Li, Hao Fang, Chi Xu, Miao Zhang, Jiangchuan Liu, William I. Atlas, Katrina M. Connors, Mark A. Spoljaric

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Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. AI and Social Good. Pages 7292-7300.

https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2026/811

Keywords

Humans and AI: Humans and AI
Multidisciplinary Topics and Applications: Multidisciplinary Topics and Applications
Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
Agent-based and Multi-agent Systems: Agent-based and Multi-agent Systems

Abstract

Rapid biodiversity loss underscore the urgency of effective monitoring, yet manual surveys remain resource-intensive. While on-device AI offers a scalable alternative, its performance in the wild is often challenged by environmental variability. Current methods rely heavily on cloud resource, which requires continuous uploading of field data for model retraining. This approach is unsuitable for remote deployments because it consumes limited power and network connectivity. To address these constraints, this research proposes a shift from model adaptation to knowledge adaptation. We introduce an architecture that separates visual perception from reasoning, combining a visual encoder with a dynamic knowledge base. We uses an explicit knowledge base to replace implicitly encoding expert knowledge into model parameters. This method also supports knowledge sustainability by preserving expert insights in a structured form. Through cross-disciplinary collaboration with biologists and Indigenous communities, this work advances ethical AI co-development, fostering responsible and culturally informed ecosystem management.

Jiaxing Li, Hao Fang, Chi Xu, Miao Zhang, Jiangchuan Liu, William I. Atlas, Katrina M. Connors, and Mark A. Spoljaric. 2026. Sustainable Intelligence for the Wild: Democratizing Ecological Monitoring via Knowledge-Adaptive Edge Expert Agents. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI-26. IJCAI, 7292–7300. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2026/811

@inproceedings{ijcai2026p811,
  title     = {Sustainable Intelligence for the Wild: Democratizing Ecological Monitoring via Knowledge-Adaptive Edge Expert Agents},
  author    = {Li, Jiaxing and Fang, Hao and Xu, Chi and Zhang, Miao and Liu, Jiangchuan and Atlas, William I. and Connors, Katrina M. and Spoljaric, Mark A.},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth International Joint Conference on
               Artificial Intelligence, {IJCAI-26}},
  publisher = {International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence Organization},
  editor    = {Diego Calvanese},
  pages     = {7292--7300},
  year      = {2026},
  month     = {8},
  note      = {AI and Social Good},
  doi       = {10.24963/ijcai.2026/811},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2026/811},
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Sustainable Intelligence for the Wild: Democratizing Ecological Monitoring via Knowledge-Adaptive Edge Expert Agents
AU  - Li, Jiaxing
AU  - Fang, Hao
AU  - Xu, Chi
AU  - Zhang, Miao
AU  - Liu, Jiangchuan
AU  - Atlas, William I.
AU  - Connors, Katrina M.
AU  - Spoljaric, Mark A.
T2  - Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI-26
PB  - International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence Organization
PY  - 2026
SP  - 7292
EP  - 7300
DO  - 10.24963/ijcai.2026/811
UR  - https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2026/811
ER  -