A new mini box corer for sampling muddy bottoms in antarctic shallow waters

Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology

Carlos Alejandro Echeverría²  Helena Passeri Lavrado¹  Lúcia Campos¹  Paulo Cesar De Paiva¹ 

[1] ,Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro Laboratório de Pesquisas Costeiras e Estuarinas Rio de Janeiro RJ ,Brasil

关键词: Mini box-corer;    Antarctica;    Benthos;    sampling;   

DOI  :  10.1590/S1516-89132009000300015

来源: SciELO

【 摘 要 】

A new Mini Box Corer (MBC-GEAMB) was developed for bottom sampling in Antarctic shallow waters down to 100 m depth from a small vessel. It consists of a detachable stainless steel box with a total sampling area of 0.0625 m², and a closing arm with a detachable blade without an external frame. MBC allowed stratified bottom sampling and good quality samples comparable to those obtained through diving. A comparison between the MBC-GEAMB and a 0.056 m²van Veen grab (VV) was undertaken for the benthic macrofaunal composition in Admiralty Bay, King George Island (Antarctica). MBC and VV samples were taken from three depths (20, 30 and 60m) in two sites. Total densities sampled with the MBC were up to 10 times higher than those obtained with van Veen grab. VV samples might lead to faunistic abundance underestimation compared to the MBC samples. Besides, MBC showed a higher performance on discriminating different sites as regards total macrofaunal density. It is suggested that MBC could be employed as an efficient remote sampling device for shallow-waters where direct sampling by SCUBA was not advisable.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC   
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