Novel robotic technologies for mapping and sampling the Mediterranean Coralligenous
Coralligenous is a relevant habitat in the Mediterranean Sea made of in-place reef-building organisms primarily composed of calcareous red algae. Due to its importance as hot spot of biodiversity, coralligenous is considered among the priority habitats for monitoring and conservation by the European Community, also because the accretion rate is slow and constituent organisms are extremely sensitive to natural and anthropogenic environmental changes. In the context of the “CRESCIBLUREEF – Grown in the blue: new technologies for knowledge and conservation of Mediterranean reefs” project, new minimally-invasive monitoring and sampling technologies are being developed to complement the existing techniques. A ROV has been equipped with an optical system capable of interactively reconstruct the 3D morphology of the seabed and with a robotic coring system able to directly collect sample of the coralligenous. The presentation will focus on the different technical problems that have been solved and on the results of the first sea trails.