Published in

Tecpar, Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology, 3(52), p. 629-636, 2009

DOI: 10.1590/s1516-89132009000300015

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

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

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Question mark in circle
Preprint: policy unknown
Question mark in circle
Postprint: policy unknown
Question mark in circle
Published version: policy unknown
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

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.