Plancha - Planche instrumentée pour l’évaluation de l’état de santé des Habitats récifaux de la biodiversité associée par ADNe
Year: 2024
Type: report
Abstract: This document presents the outcomes of the Plancha project ("Instrumented Autonomous Surface Vehicle for Assessing the Health Status of Reef Habitats and Associated Biodiversity Using Environmental DNA"). The primary objective of the project was to map bathymetry and major benthic morphotype classes across the back-reef depressions and outer reef slopes of Réunion Island. Two autonomous surface vehicles were developed and equipped with an echosounder, a camera, a centimetre-accuracy GPS, and an autonomous navigation system. Over the course of the project, more than 400,000 m² of reef habitat were surveyed, resulting in the production of high-resolution bathymetric maps and benthic morphotype classifications. Seawater samples were collected from five sites located within the back-reef depressions of Réunion Island for environmental DNA (eDNA) analyses. These analyses revealed clear differences in community composition among sites using three genetic markers (COI, 18S, and MiFish). Overall, the Plancha project demonstrated the value of autonomous surface vehicles as robust and reproducible tools for collecting environmental and biodiversity data in coral reef ecosystems. These observation platforms can be readily deployed by trained operators to support routine monitoring programs. Furthermore, the entire workflow for data storage, processing, and analysis has been fully automated, enabling datasets to be published with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI).
DOI: 10.13155/118077
Language: English
Subfield: Ecology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Life below water
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7166100679