Submarine coupled multi-filtration pump

Abstract

The submarine coupled multi-filtration pump (SC-pump), a zooplankton pump system for quantitative sampling coupled with a submarine, is described. The device is battery-powered by the submarine auxiliary engine and has a wide range of potential applications. The SC-pump efficiently collected replicate zooplankton samples associated with cold-water corals and provided reliable estimates of density for major groups of abundant zooplankton encountered in the vicinity of corals (mean 259 ± 173 ind. m−3). A performance test of the SC-pump compared with conventional net catches (WP2 net) considering overall faunal composition showed effective sampling of the fauna associated with cold-water corals