Use of Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures to Monitor Changes in the Marine Environment in Jeju, South Korea: A Brief Review

Abstract

Technology for monitoring natural environments can provide a basic understanding of ecosystem changes and information for resource management. The Natural Geography in Shore Areas project is an international collaborative effort for inventorying and monitoring marine biodiversity, and it indicates that Korea is one of the most species-rich regions worldwide. Rising sea surface temperatures due to climate change have significantly affected the distribution of marine organisms, which has led to the recent discovery of various subtropical and tropical organisms and new species on the southern coast of Korea, including Jeju Island. Furthermore, the current marine benthic ecosystem of southern Jeju Island has changed from seaweed-based habitat to coral-dominated habitat owing to climate change. Consequently, the marine organism influx driven by climate change must be monitored because habitat changes caused by sub-tropicalization lead to changes in future marine and fishery resources. To monitor this expansion of marine organisms, autonomous reef monitoring structures (ARMS) can be employed to effectively collect cryptofauna data while reducing the sampling effort, lowering costs, and preventing habitat destruction. Thus, ARMS have been used as an internationally standardized hard benthic substrate monitoring technique in various regions. Moreover, ARMS are environmentally friendly and can more effectively monitor marine ecosystem changes than conventional marine biodiversity research methods. Therefore, ARMS are an essential tool for monitoring benthic ecosystems and represent a potential model tool for observing alterations in marine ecosystems due to climate change.