The geomorphology of the deep-sea environment is complex, including seamounts based on hard rocks and seabeds based on rare soft sediments. Therefore, the frame of the benthic lander needs to be shock and subsidence resistant. In this paper, the stat...
The growing need for deep-sea biological research and environmental monitoring has expanded the demand for benthic landers. Compared with remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), benthic landers can reduce overall...
Marine environments are currently subject to strong ecological pressure due to local and global anthropic stressors, such as pollutants and atmospheric inputs, which also cause ocean acidification and warming. These strains can result in biogeochemic...
The “Little MonSta” benthic lander array consists of 8 ROV-deployable (remotely operated vehicle) instrumented lander platforms for monitoring physical and chemical oceanographic properties and particle sampling developed as part of the MMMonKey_Pro...
This study focuses on the development of a machine learning (ML) model to elaborate on predictions of structural damage in submerged structures due to ocean states and subsequently compares it to a real-life case of a 6-month experiment with a benthi...
Quantitative acoustic marine habitat mapping needs to consider the impact of macrobenthic organisms on backscatter data. However, the sensitivity of hydroacoustic systems to epibenthic life is poorly constrained. This study explores the impact of a b...
We characterized the biogeochemical organic carbon (Corg) cycles in the surface sediment layer of the Ulleung Basin (UB) of the East Sea. The total oxygen uptake (TOU) rate and the diffusive oxygen uptake (DOU) rate of the sediment were measured usin...
In semi-closed coastal brackish systems, the stratification of the water column due to the interaction between freshwater and seawater can lead to a reduction in the dissolved oxygen (DO) levels in the bottom layers, consequently affecting the benthi...
There is growing awareness of the impact of fishery activities on fragile and vulnerable deep-sea ecosystems, stimulating actions devoted to their protection and best management by national and international organizations. The Bari Canyon in the Adri...
Background: Monitoring the ecological status of coastal ecosystems is essential to track the consequences of anthropogenic pressures and assess conservation actions. Monitoring requires periodic measurements collected in situ, replicated over large a...
Gorgonians play a fundamental role in the deep sea (below 200 m depth), composing three-dimensional habitats that are characterized by a high associated biodiversity and playing an important part in biogeochemical cycles. Here we describe the use of...
Ocean warming and acidification pose serious threats to cold-water corals (CWCs) and the surrounding habitat. Yet, little is known about the role of natural short-term and seasonal environmental variability, which could be pivotal to determine the re...
Three experiments were conducted in the Belgian part of the North Sea to investigate short-term variation in seafloor backscatter strength (BS) obtained with multibeam echosounders (MBES). Measurements were acquired on predominantly gravelly (offshor...