Analysis of Antarctic benthos dynamics and spatial patterns based on non-destructive techniques and image analysis: development of an integrated monitoring toolkit and general protocols
Introduction- First chapter introduces the Antarctic coastal marine environments, as part of the intriguing and challenging “puzzle” that scientific community is committed to resolve, represented by Antarctica and its changes. A brief glimpse on two of the main drivers influencing benthic communitie...
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| Other Authors: | , |
| Format: | Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Università degli Studi di Siena
2019
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/11365/1074688 https://www.int-arch-photogramm-remote-sens-spatial-inf-sci.net/XLII-2/885/2018/isprs-archives-XLII-2-885-2018.pdf https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-019-02480-w |
| Summary: | Introduction- First chapter introduces the Antarctic coastal marine environments, as part of the intriguing and challenging “puzzle” that scientific community is committed to resolve, represented by Antarctica and its changes. A brief glimpse on two of the main drivers influencing benthic communities dwelling in these areas, the sea-ice and the substrate, is given, with a special eye on the unresolved aspects of their influence on marine organisms and on the effect of their variations. Some of the major challenges of scientific researches in such extreme and fragile environment is highlighted together with an overview on ongoing and proposed strategies of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). Especially focusing on monitoring perspective, the essential requirement of the establishment of permanent sites and of specially protected areas is discussed. Later on, an overview on the study site and its inhabiting key species is presented. Recent advances in underwater technologies confer the opportunity to overcome previous technical limitations and to improve our capacity of investigation in similar areas. Between emerging techniques, non-destructive image-based ones are introduced in their theoretical aspects. Another pivotal aspect of monitoring is the strategy of sampling, one of the major issues on which relies the reliability of a monitoring project. Preliminary considerations on the relevance of choice of the best sampling design are described. Materials and Methods- Second chapter describes the methodologies used to collect, elaborate and analyse data obtained from images. Firstly, field operations are described, corresponding to well-established protocol of nondestructive image-based SCUBA-operated sampling on shallow rocky bottoms. A particular attention is provided to the use made of sampled materials during the in-silico procedures. This is a newness element of this project, providing one of the first examples of application of some emerging image-based techniques in Antarctica. The ... |
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