Assessing cryptic reef diversity of colonizing marine invertebrates using Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) deployed at coral reef sites in Batangas, Philippines from 2012 to 2015

Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) are used by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) to assess and monitor cryptic reef diversity across the Pacific.  Developed in collaboration with the Census of Marine Life (CoML) Census of Coral Reef Ecosystems (CReefs), ARMS are designed to mimic the structural complexity of a reef and attract/collect colonizing marine invertebrates. The key innovation of the ARMS method is biodiversity is sampled over precisely the same surface area in the exact same manner. Thus, the use of ARMS is a systematic, consistent, and comparable method for monitoring the marine cryptobiota community over time.

The data described here were collected by CREP from ARMS moored at fixed climate survey sites located on hard bottom shallow water (< 15 m) habitats in the Philippines.  Climate sites were established by CREP to assess multiple features of the coral reef environment (in addition to the data described herein) from March 2012 to June 2015, and three ARMS units were deployed by SCUBA divers at each survey site. The data can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive.

Each ARMS unit, constructed in-house by CREP, consisted of 23 cm x 23 cm gray, type 1 PVC plates stacked in alternating series of 4 open and 4 obstructed layers and attached to a base plate of 35 cm x 45 cm, which was affixed to the reef. Upon recovery, each ARMS unit was encapsulated, brought to the surface, and disassembled and processed. Disassembled plates were photographed to document recruited sessile organisms and scraped clean and preserved in 95% ethanol for DNA processing. Recruited motile organisms were sieved into 3 size fractions: 2 mm, 500 Âµm, and 100 Âµm. The 500 Âµm and 100 Âµm fractions were bulked and also preserved in 95% ethanol for DNA processing. The 2 mm fraction was sorted into morphospecies. Once the data for DNA processing is published, it will be accessible in a separate record that will be added in the "Related Items" section below.

Tags: 483, aquatic habitat, arms, arthur's reef, arthur's rock (13n120e0002), autonomous reef monitoring structure (arms), autonomous reef monitoring structures, balayan bay, baseline data from climate stations in batangas, baseline studies, batalang bato, batangas, batong buhay, benthic habitat, biodiversity, biodiversity and fisheries in the coral triangle: embracing the e in ecosystem approaches to fisheri, biology, biosphere, brachyura, census, climate, coastal processes, coral reef conservation program, coral reef ecology, coral reef ecosystem division, coral reef ecosystem program, coral reef studies, coral reefs, coral triangle initiative, corals, country/territory, cred, crep, cryptobiota, doc/noaa/nmfs/pifsc, earth science, ecosystem sciences division, in situ biological, invertebrate species, koala reserve area, mabini (13n120e0032), macroinvertebrates, maricaban island, marine biology, marine invertebrates, national marine fisheries service, nmfs, noaa, numeric data sets, nw pacific (limit-180), ocean basin, oceans, pacific islands fisheries science center, pacific ocean, philippines, philippines from 2012 to 2015, pifsc, reef habitat, reef monitoring and assessment, south china sea, species identification, species identification - count, survey - biological, tingloy (13n120e0009), twin rocks, twin rocks sanctuary (13n120e0005), u.s. department of commerce, united states agency for international development, us doc, usaid, verde island passage, visual estimate, visual observation, zoology
Organization: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce