Scientific Exchange Program on Autonomous Reef Monitoring Systems

Tang ZhenzhaoSouth China Sea Fisheries Research Institute

Outline

• Background of this exchange program• Introduction of ARMS• What did I do in ARMS team?• What will we do with ARMS in China?

Background• The exchange program was proposed in the U.S.-China

Meeting on Living Marine Resources: Habitat Monitoring, Assessment and Restoration of Reef Systems Project held on November 2011 in Honolulu.

What is ARMS?

• ARMS is an inexpensive, simple, and standardized method designed to mimic the structural complexity of a coral reef and attract colonizing invertebrates. (Molly Timmers)

Intact ARMS model and exploded version

Why using ARMS?

• Coral reefs are among the most diverse and biologically complex marine ecosystems in the world.

• Providing tremendous economic and environmental resource value.

• It is important to understand the basic community structure and diversity of organisms comprising the system and how these components will respond individually and collectively to both local and global environmental changes.

• ARMS has been used widely all over the world.

Exchange Goals

• Learn how to deploy, recover, and conduct real-time processing on ARMS units.

• Learn current procedures in post-processing of motile organisms from preserved bulk specimens obtain from ARMS units recovered in the U.S. Pacific Islands.

• Learn how to obtain percent cover information from plate analysis on sessile communities.

• Learn to process associated metadata.• Be exposed to the database system used to record and

document all aspects of ARMS activities.

1st Week in CRED

• Read some literatures on ARMS and learned to sort the main species in Hawaii islands.

• Visited NOAA’s research vessel and new NOAA basement under construction.

2nd Week in CRED

• Learned to sort samples which were obtained from ARMS units recovered in the U.S. Pacific Islands.

• Learned to assemble ARMS. • Learned to assemble CAUS which were used to monitor

the acidification.

3rd week-Recover of ARMS

3rd week-processing on ARMS units

4th week in CRED

• Learned to obtain percent cover information from plate analysis on sessile communities by CPCe software.

• Be exposed to the database system.

(Kevin & Shaun, 2006)

ARMS in South China Sea-Purpose

• Monitoring diversity of community structure in Coral Reef area.

• Monitoring diversity of community structure in Artificial Reef area.

• Comparing the diversity character between natural and artificial reefs.

ARMS in South China Sea- Plan

• Modification of ARMS design.• Submitted a proposal on ARMS to Ministry of

Agriculture.• Have reached an initial collaborative intention

on ARMS with Fishery Bureau of Shenzhen.• Plan to conduct experimental deployment of

ARMS in coral reef site and artificial reef site in Northern South China Sea, the optional sites include Zhujiang Kou, Beibu Bay, Yue Xi, Yue Dong and Sanya.

Modification of ARMS design

• Due to the difference of resource and environment between South China Sea and Hawaii Islands, CRED scientists have agreed that we could modify the design of ARMS if the modification can guarantee the comparability.

Brief of the proposal

• Sanya and Shenzhen are chosen to be the experimental sea area.

• We will choose 6 sites to deploy ARMS and these ARMS will be recovered every 3 months since the 6th month to investigate tendency of diversity variation with time and location.

Sanya Coral Reef Protected Area

Shenzhen Coral Reef Distribution

Xuwen Coral Reef Protected Area

Acknowledgement

• CAFS & NOAA• Prof. Chen Pimao• Dr. Rusty Brainard• Kelly Sage• Molly Timmers• Kerry Reardon

Thank you