Table - Capabilities of various monitoring techniques for the sea pens and burrowing megafauna biotope complex

Summary of the capabilities of the various monitoring techniques.

	Remote sampling	Diving	Towed video	ROV	RoxAnn^TM
Equipment widely available	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Hard boat required	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Physical hazards	No	Yes	No	No	No
Analytical time/effort required	Time- and labour-intensive	Depends on tasks undertaken	Time- and labour-intensive	Time- and labour- intensive	Relatively low compared to remote sampling
Depth/time limitations¹	None	Strict	None	None	None
Geographic constraints²	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Seabed topographic constraints³	No	No	Yes	No	No
Limited by water turbidity	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Sample collection	Yes	Yes	No	Yes (some models)	No
Close-up observation	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Areal coverage	Very low (per sample)	Low	Very high	High	Very high
Information on topography and larger fauna	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (faunal data limited)
Information on smaller fauna	Yes	Yes (if cores taken)	No⁴	Yes (some models)	No
Burrow/faunal density measurements	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (less accurate than towed video)	No

1. Refers to depths likely to be encountered in UK coastal waters (ie. < 200 m)

2. Access to very shallow water or narrowly enclosed inlets

3. Deployment constrained by mixed substrata or where submarine obstructions present

4. Can be overcome using suspended grab/camera system (see text)