Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem detected via ROV at Cuverville Island, Western Antarctic Peninsula (Subarea 48.1)

Data Records

The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 20 records.

3 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Lockhart S, Plasman C (2025). Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem detected via ROV at Cuverville Island, Western Antarctic Peninsula (Subarea 48.1). Version 2.0. SCAR - AntOBIS. Samplingevent dataset. https://doi.org/10.48361/mpljcr

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is SCAR - AntOBIS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 4832c401-3747-4e0d-a1dd-95b1f73943e8.  SCAR - AntOBIS publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Ocean Biodiversity Information System.

Keywords

VULNERABLE MARINE ECOSYSTEM; VME; CCAMLR; ANTARCTICA; SPONGES; HYDROIDS; INDICATOR TAXA; KELP; BLUE CARBON; Samplingevent; Observation

Contacts

Geographic Coverage

This dataset represents observations collected via ROV dives in the Southern Ocean, off the east coast of Cuverville Island (Errera Channel, Gerlache Strait, Western Antarctic Peninsula). Geographic coverage was inferred from the sample locations (62°36'51.5"W, 64°41'24.6"S). The region includes benthic habitats potentially corresponding to Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs) under CCAMLR criteria.

Taxonomic Coverage

No Description available

Temporal Coverage

Project Data

A novel collaboration between commercial submersible pilots, and their organizations, with Southern Benthics to provide footage of the seabed around Antarctica for the purposes of securing protection for VMEs, and for monitoring the health of those VMEs in the long term in the face of the climate crisis.

The personnel involved in the project:

Sampling Methods

Sampling was conducted by a Deep Trekker ROV with inbuilt 4K camera.

Method step description:

1. DaVinci Resolve 18.6 was used to combine separate files where necessary and for editing.
2. Clean-up followed the same methodology as was used for analyzing the submersible footage for the successful nomination of VMEs in WG-EMM-22/46Rev1 to remove unusable sequences. For the Cuverville Is footage that meant the removal of any sequences where the ROV was too far from the wall, where the visibility was poor, too much water column filled the frame, when the ROV remained focused on one area and where the ROV was moving too fast to produce a clear frame for analysis. This is the footage deposited in Zenodo.
3. Since kelp obscured the view of the benthos, further edits of footage were made where seaweed obscured more than 40% of the frame. Resultant length of footage for analysis was 14m49s.
4. Footage was color graded within DaVinci Resolve 18.6.
5. The analysis methodology also followed that which was used in WG-EMM-22/46Rev1. To compare the relative percent abundance of VME indicator taxa to that of non-VME taxa and bare substrate at the Cuverville Is site, frames were exported at regular intervals (40 secs) beginning at 0:00.
6. The resulting series of images were then imported into the program PAPARA(ZZ)I (Marcon & Purser, 2017). Within this program images were further enhanced by adjusting brightness, contrast and gamma. As recommended by the authors, the usable area was then defined for each image allowing the exclusion of dark or blurred edges.
7. Once images were prepared in this way, an array of 100 random points was overlayed. Each point in each image was assigned one of four designations: VME indicator taxa, non-VME taxa, seaweed or bare substrate.
8. Analysis of individual frames (which can appear low quality) is always accompanied by careful observation of the original full length footage which shows a greater resolution of view, approach to analysis frame, often provides different angles and views that were edited out to reduce bias and can include macro closeup imagery that all help to ground truth the scoring of random points in any individual frame analysed.

Bibliographic Citations

1. Lockhart, S. and Hocevar J. (2021) Combined Abundance of all Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem Indicator Taxa inadequate as sole determiner of vulnerability, Antarctic Peninsula. Frontiers in Marine Science. Sept 2021, Vol 8, Article 577761. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.577761. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.577761
2. Marcon, Y. and Purser A. (2017) PAPARA(ZZ)I: An open-source software interface for annotating photographs of the deep-sea. SoftwareX. 6, 69-80.
3. SC-CAMLR-XXXVII (2018) Thirty-seventh Meeting of the Scientific Committee. CCAMLR. Hobart, Australia.
4. SC-CAMLR-41 (2022) Forty-first meeting of the Scientific Committee. CCAMLR. Hobart, Australia.
5. SC-CAMLR-43 (2024) Forty-third meeting of the Scientific Committee. CCAMLR. Hobart, Australia.
6. Tait, L.W., C. Chin, W. Nelson, S. George, P. Marriott, R.L. O’Driscoll, M. Lamare, V.S. Mills and V.J. Cummings (2024) Deep-living and diverse Antarctic seaweeds as potentially important contributors to global carbon fixation. Communications Earth & Science. 5:205. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01362-2
7. WG-EMM-18/35. Lockhart, S. & J. Hocevar (2018) Evidence of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems documented via submarine in the Antarctic Sound and Gerlache Strait (Subarea 48.1). CCAMLR. Hobart, Australia.
8. WG-EMM-22/34Rev1. Lockhart, S. & R. Izendooren (2022) Evidence of a Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem documented via tourist submarine off Cape Well-Met, Vega Island, Eastern Antarctic Peninsula (Subarea 48.1). CCAMLR. Hobart, Australia.
9. WG-EMM-22/46Rev1. Lockhart, S., R. Downey, R. García-Roa, J. Hocevar & L. Weller (2022) Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems documented via submarine in the Bransfield Strait and the Eastern Antarctic Peninsula (Subarea 48.1). CCAMLR. Hobart, Australia.
10. WG-EMM-24/48Rev1. Lockhart, S., S. Potter, C. Venus, K. Weller, R.C. Izendooren (2024) Submersible gathered evidence of a Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem at the Melchior Islands, Western Antarctic Peninsula (Subarea 48.1). CCAMLR. Hobart, Australia.
11. 11. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research. (2023). SCAR Report 42 - September 2022 - SCAR Data Policy (2022). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7825314. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7825314

Additional Metadata