Monitoring Structures (ARMS) in Antarctica

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This is a 3D model of an Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structure, which collects marine understudied cryptofauna passively. They intercept settlers and offer shelter to marine fauna and flora with a 3D structure that mimics hard bottom marine substrates complexity. ARMS are used globally in a monitoring program (http://www.oceanarms.org). This set of 6 structures represents the first one deployed in Antarctica, in the Terra Nova Bay area, by an Italian research project called ICE-LAPSE (PNRA 2013/AZ1-16). The settlers are being characterized from a molecular viewpoint by the TNB-CODE program (Terra Nova Bay barCODing and mEtabarcoding of Antarctic organisms from marine and limno-terrestrial environments, coordinated by Schiaparelli S.), part of a PhD thesis by Matteo Cecchetto (DISTAV, University of Genoa, Italy). The model is based on still frames extracted from an underwater video recorded by Ian Hawes (University of Waikato).