Assessing cryptic reef diversity of colonizing marine invertebrates using autonomous reef monitoring structures (ARMS) deployed at coral reef sites in Timor-Leste from 2012-10-15 to 2014-10-09 (NCEI Accession 0169338)
The data described here, including photographs, genetic sequences, and specimen information, were collected by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) from Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures, or ARMS, moored for two years at fixed climate survey sites located on hard bottom shallow water (< 15 m) habitats in Timor-Leste. Climate sites were established in Timor-Leste in October 2012 to establish ecological baselines for climate change by measuring multiple features of the coral reef environment (in addition to the data described herein) over time.
Three ARMS units were typically deployed by SCUBA divers at each survey site. 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, scraped clean and preserved in 95% ethanol for DNA processing. Recruited motile organisms were sieved into 3 size fractions: 2 mm, 500 µm, and 100 µm. The 500 µm and 100 µm fractions were bulked and also preserved in 95% ethanol for DNA processing. The 2 mm fraction was sorted into morphospecies, photographed, and identified to the lowest taxonomic identification possible. The plate photographs, sequences generated from the DNA metabarcoding of the scrapings and the 500- and 100-µm fractions, specimen photographs, and specimen identifications are included in the ARMS dataset. The data can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive.
ARMS are used by 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 that 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.
Three ARMS units were typically deployed by SCUBA divers at each survey site. 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, scraped clean and preserved in 95% ethanol for DNA processing. Recruited motile organisms were sieved into 3 size fractions: 2 mm, 500 µm, and 100 µm. The 500 µm and 100 µm fractions were bulked and also preserved in 95% ethanol for DNA processing. The 2 mm fraction was sorted into morphospecies, photographed, and identified to the lowest taxonomic identification possible. The plate photographs, sequences generated from the DNA metabarcoding of the scrapings and the 500- and 100-µm fractions, specimen photographs, and specimen identifications are included in the ARMS dataset. The data can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive.
ARMS are used by 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 that 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.
Dataset Citation
- Cite as: Coral Reef Ecosystem Program; Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (2018). Assessing cryptic reef diversity of colonizing marine invertebrates using autonomous reef monitoring structures (ARMS) deployed at coral reef sites in Timor-Leste from 2012-10-15 to 2014-10-09 (NCEI Accession 0169338). [indicate subset used]. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/archive/accession/0169338. Accessed [date].
Dataset Identifiers
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gov.noaa.nodc:0169338
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NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information +1-301-713-3277 ncei.info@noaa.gov |
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NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information ncei.info@noaa.gov |
Time Period | 2012-10-15 to 2014-10-09 |
Spatial Bounding Box Coordinates |
West: 125.49912
East: 125.01319
South: -8.85321
North: -8.22438
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Dataset Progress Status | Complete - production of the data has been completed Historical archive - data has been stored in an offline storage facility |
Data Update Frequency | As needed - NCEI Accession 0169338 was revised and a new version of the archival package was published. Updates to existing archival packages may provide additional files or replace obsolete files. The latest version contains the most complete and up-to-date representation of this archival information package. All of the files received prior to this update are available in the preceding version of this accession. Please see journal.txt in the /about directory for additional details on changes made. |
Supplemental Information | In this accession, NCEI has archived multiple versions of these data. The latest (and best) version of these data has the largest version number. |
Purpose | The use of ARMS is a systematic, consistent, and comparable method for monitoring the marine cryptobiota community in coral reef ecosystems over time. The Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) at NOAA Fisheries is conducting in-situ climate monitoring across the U.S. Pacific Islands Region. Climate monitoring provides a comprehensive view of climate change impacts on coral reef ecosystems and helps identify areas of resilience and vulnerability. The key indicators used to identify and monitor climate-driven trends include 1) thermal stress caused by changes in sea temperature, 2) ocean acidification resulting from changes in carbonate chemistry, and 3) ecological impacts by collecting data on coral growth rates and community structure to understand the impacts of thermal stress and ocean acidification on the ecosystem. This particular dataset for Timor-Leste is part of a 3-year project ("Climate, Biodiversity and Fisheries in the Coral Triangle: Embracing the E in Ecosystem Approaches to Fisheries Management") implemented by CREP. This project was funded by NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Regional Development Mission Asia (RDMA) as part of the U.S. Coral Triangle Initiative, with additional support from the Coral Triangle Support Partnership and USAID Philippines. The goal of the project was to build on CREP's expertise to provide tools and information about climate change, ocean acidification, and their impacts on biodiversity and fisheries that could inform and be incorporated into an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management (EAFM) for the Philippines. CREP worked with local governments, communities, and NGOs to build science capacity by establishing robust observing capabilities and providing hands-on training to initiate collection of climate science information for the Verde Island Passage in the Philippines that can be used toward adaptive EAFM. In 2011, NOAA and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Timor-Leste Mission formed a 5-year bi-lateral partnership agreement from 2012 to 2016, in support of the Government of Timor-Leste—particularly the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF)—by addressing significant information gaps in their nearshore marine ecosystems. Specifically, MAF asked NOAA to address the following questions: 1. Where are the nearshore marine resources? 2. What are the nearshore marine resources? 3. How are they changing over time and what threats are potentially causing these changes? 4. What approaches are needed to manage and conserve the nearshore marine resources? With financial support from USAID and in-kind support from the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP), the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) conducted baseline ecosystem assessment surveys to inform ecosystem-based management planning in Timor-Leste. The primary activities conducted by NOAA to answer these questions included: 1. satellite mapping of nearshore habitats, 2. conducting coral reef ecosystem assessments, 3. establishing ecological baselines for climate change, and 4. building management capacity by developing a spatial data framework The biodiversity data described herein resulted from the third activity to establish ecological baselines for climate change. |
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Last Modified: 2025-04-03T21:53:54Z
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