Using this dataset, we developed a high-performance CNN classifier (EfficientNetV2-B0) capable of predicting the five most probable taxa, achieving 86.3% top-1 accuracy and 98.8% top-5 accuracy.
At 98.8% top-5 across 95 phytoplankton classes, the correct taxon is almost always among the five most confident predictions, turning a 95-way taxonomic decision into a five-way confirmation. For FlowCam-based monitoring where expert taxonomists currently bottleneck throughput, this enables a human-in-the-loop workflow where analysts confirm a shortlist rather than identifying from scratch.
Paper annotation: Using this dataset, we developed a high-performance CNN classifier (EfficientNetV2-B0) capable of predicting the five most probable taxa, achieving 86.3% top-1 accuracy and 98.8% top-5 accuracy.