Placing ARMS in the Red Sea

Nancy Knowlton, Smithsonian's Sant Chair for Marine Science, puts up an Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structure (ARMS) during a dive in the Red Sea. These small underwater “condos” have been placed across the world’s oceans—from shallow water to 700 feet on the deep reefs of Curaçao, and from Brazil to the Indian Ocean. The ARMS mimic the nooks and crannies of oyster reefs, without the sharp edges and irregular shapes that make actual oysters hard to study. Once creatures move in the ARMS are collected and scientists begin the task of identifying thousands of species using DNA barcoding. Read more about the results on our blog.