42 'mini-hotels' installed in S'pore waters to study marine life

Located in 7 places, they will shed light on lesser-known coral reef creatures

- Audrey Tan

Forty-two "mini hotels" have been installed across seven underwater locations in Singapore, as part of a new research effort announced on Oct 28 that aims to help scientists better understand the different types of marine life here.

The structures, known as Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (Arms), are stacks of plastic plates that mimic the structure of a coral reef, providing nooks and crannies for sea creatures, including crustaceans, burrowing worms, sponges and encrusting algae, to find homes in.

The units have been anchored to the seafloor with stakes at Raffles Lighthouse, Sisters' Islands Marine Park, St John's and Kusu islands, Pulau Semakau, and two sites near Pulau Hantu.

The locations were selected as they represented a range of habitat quality, said NUS marine biologist Huang Danwei, who is deputy head of the university's Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum and the principal investigator for the study.

For example, the coral reef habitats at Raffles Lighthouse and the marine park are some of the most diverse in the country, while Pulau Semakau has coral reefs that are comparatively more degraded.

Of the 42 Arms that were deployed, half will be left underwater for a year, while the rest will remain there for two years.

After each of those times, researchers will retrieve the structures and take the plates apart in the laboratory to scrutinise the life that had colonised the structures during different periods.

Researchers here want to learn more about the coral's "cryptobiome" - referring to the cryptic life living inside a coral reef that tends to escape attention - as part of the second Comprehensive Marine Biodiversity Survey announced by the National Parks Board (NParks) on Oct 28.

The first survey was a five-year effort undertaken from 2010 to take stock of Singapore's marine biodiversity in different habitats.