Biodiversity of ARMS recruitment devices on the Central Coast of British Columbia

Marine invertebrate settlement can provide unique insight into coastal biodiversity. We deployed Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) at 12 locations on the central coast of British Columbia. The first experiment ran for 1 year and concluded in 2017, the second experiment ran for 2 years and concluded in 2020. All organisms that had recruited to the ARMS were split into three fractions: Sessile organisms, motile organisms <500uM, motile organisms 500-2000uM. Each of these fractions was homogenized and used for DNA metabarcoding targeting a ~313bp section of the COI locus.