Assessing and monitoring cryptic reef diversity of colonizing marine invertebrates across the U.S.-affiliated islands and atolls in the Pacific since 2008 using the Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structure (ARMS) method

To support a long-term program for sustainable management and conservation of coral reef ecosystems, from 2008, Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) have been deployed and/or recovered across the U.S. Such cruises are conducted at two to three year intervals by the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED) at the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC). CRED partnered with other scientists from the Census of Marine Life (CoML) Census of Coral Reef Ecosystems (CReefs) to develop Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS). ARMS mimic the complexity of coral reefs to attract/collect colonizing invertebrates and provide a systematic, consistent, and comparable method to monitor cryptic reef diversity. The key innovation of this method is that ARMS sample biodiversity 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 cryptobiota community overtime. At specific reef sites, divers enter the water and deploy and/or recover the ARMS unit. Each unit consists 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 is affixed to the reef. They are designed to mimic the structural complexity of a reef and attract colonizing invertebrates. Upon recovery, the ARMS unit is encapsulated, brought to the surface, and disassembled and processed onboard the research ship. Disassembled plates are photographed to document recruited sessile organisms and scraped clean and preserved in 95% ethanol for future DNA processing. Recruited motile organisms are sieved into 3 size fractions: 2 mm, 500 um, and 100 um. The 500 um and 100 um fraction is bulked and preserved in 95% ethanol for future DNA processing. The 2 mm fraction is sorted into morphospecies.

Tags: 1221, 587, 743, american samoa, american samoa (14s170w0000), autonomous reef monitoring structure (arms), baker island, baker island (00n176w0001), biodiversity, biology, biosphere, brachyura, census, central pacific ocean, climate station, coastal processes, commonwealth of the northern mariana islands, coral reef ecology, coral reef ecosystem, coral reefs, corals, coris_metadata, country/territory, cryptobiota, crytobiota, earth science, french frigate shoals (24n166w0001), guam, guam (13n144e0000), hawaii, hawaii (21n160w0000), hawaii island, hawaii island (19n155w0003), hawaiian islands, hawaiian islands (21n157w0027), honolulu, howland island, howland island (00s176w0001), in situ biological, invertebrates, jarvis island (00s160w0001), johnston atoll, johnston atoll (16n169w0001), kauai island, kauai island (22n159w0001), kingman reef (06n162w0001), kure atoll (28n178w0001), line islands, lisianski island (25n173w0001), macroinvertebrates, main hawaiian islands, manu'a group, mariana archipelago, marine biology, marine ecosystem, marine invertebrates, maro reef (25n170w0001), maug, maug island, maug island (20n145e0001), maui, maui island, maui island (20n156w0004), midway atoll (28n177w0001), national coral reef monitoring plan (ncrmp) implementation, national coral reef monitoring program, northern mariana islands, northern mariana islands ( cnmi ) (18n146e0000), northwestern hawaiian islands, northwestern hawaiian islands (28n178w0000), numeric data sets, oahu (21n157w0003), oahu island, ocean basin, oceans, ofu (14s169w0002), ofu island, ofu island (14s169w0013), olosega (14s169w0016), olosega island, olosega island (14s169w0014), pacific ocean, pacific reef assessment and monitoring program (pacific ramp): biennial monitoring for the u.s. paci, pacific remote island areas, pagan, pagan island, pagan island (18n145e0001), palmyra atoll (05n162w0001), pearl and hermes reef (27n176w0001), rapid ecological assessment (rea), reef assessment and monitoring program (ramp), reef monitoring and assessment, rose atoll (14s168w0001), rota, rota island, rota island ( luta ) (14n145e0007), saipan, saipan island, saipan island (15n145e0002), swains atoll (11s171w0001), tutuila island (14s170w0016), united states of america, usa minor outlying islands, wake atoll, wake atoll (19n167e0001), western pacific ocean, zoology
Organization: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce