Lessons from photo analyses of Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures as tools to detect (bio-)geographical, spatial, and environmental effects

• Published in: Marine Pollution Bulletin
• Main Authors: David, Romain, Uyarra, Maria, Carvalho, Susana, Anlauf, Holger, Borja, Angel, Cahill, Abigail, Carugati, Laura, Danovaro, Roberto, de Jode, Aurelien, Féral, Jean-Pierre, Guillemain, Dorian, Martire, Marco Lo, Thierry de Ville d'Avray, Laure, Pearman, John, K, Chenuil, Anne
• Other Authors: Institut méditerranéen de biodiversité et d'écologie marine et continentale (IMBE), Avignon Université (AU)-Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Institut de recherche pour le développement IRD : UMR237-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Azti Tecnalia, Centro Tecnológico del Mar y los Alimentos (Marine Resarch Unit) (Azti), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), AZTI - Tecnalia, Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e dell’Ambiente, Università Politecnica delle Marche Ancona (UNIVPM), Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Scienze del Mare Rome, Italie (CoNISma), ANR-11-IDEX-0001,Amidex,INITIATIVE D'EXCELLENCE AIX MARSEILLE UNIVERSITE(2011), ANR-11-LABX-0061,OTMed,Objectif Terre : Bassin Méditerranéen(2011), European Project: 308392,EC:FP7:ENV,FP7-ENV-2012-two-stage,DEVOTES(2012)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2019
• Subjects: Scientific diving; Colonization; Biodiversity; Artificial reefs; Settlement; Monitoring; Hard substrata; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; [SDE.IE]Environmental Sciences/Environmental Engineering; Three Arms; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-02061256; https://hal.science/hal-02061256/document; https://hal.science/hal-02061256/file/2019_David_Marine%20Pollution%20Bulletin_pr_Lessons%20from%20photo%20analyses%20of%20Autonomous%20Reef%20Monitoring%20Structures%20as%20tools%20to%20detect%20%28bio-%29geographical,%20spatial,%20and%20environmental%20effects.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.02.066

International audience We investigated the validity of Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) as monitoring tools for hard bottoms across a wide geographic and environmental range. We deployed 36 ARMS in the northeast Atlantic, northwest Mediterranean, Adriatic and Red Sea at 7–17 m depth. After 12–16 months, community composition was inferred from photographs, in six plate-faces for each ARMS. Overall, we found a highly significant effect of sea region, site (within seas), and plate-face on community composition. Plate-faces thus represent distinct micro-habitats and provide pseudo-replicates, increasing statistical power. Within each sea region taken individually, there was also a highly significant effect of site and plate-face. Because strong effects were obtained despite the fusion of taxonomic categories at high taxonomic ranks (to ensure comparability among biogeographic provinces), ARMS photo-analysis appears a promising monitoring tool for each sea region. We recommend keeping three ARMS per site and analyzing more numerous sites within a sea region to investigate environmental effects.