Langlois T, Spencer C, Gibbons BA, Griffin KJ, Adams K, Aston C, Barrett N et al. (2025). Benthic Observation Survey System (BOSS) for Surveys of Marine Benthic Habitats. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, February.
Overview
Marine scientists often rely on underwater cameras to survey seabed habitats, but traditional methods come with limitations—small fields of view, restricted coverage, and logistical constraints. Enter the Benthic Observation Survey System (BOSS): a new wide-field, self-righting drop-camera system that significantly expands our ability to survey and map the seafloor.
In collaboration with Parks Australia, we tested the BOSS in a no-take National Park Zone within the South-west Corner Marine Park, Australia, generating habitat maps over ~100km². The results demonstrated its effectiveness in capturing habitat heterogeneity at scales relevant to conservation and management.
In collaboration with Western Rock Lobster fishers and the Australian Government’s Fisheries Research Development Corporation, we used the wide-angle coverage of the BOSS to develop a new method for accurately mapping shallow and coastal marine habitats from satellite imagery. We demonstrated this method, published in the ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, at representative areas across a 400km stretch of the Mid West coastline of Western Australia documenting habitats critical to Australia’s most valuable wild-caught fishery. Next we used the method developed with BOSS ground truthing to track change over the 35 years across 600 km, focusing on underwater vegetation crucial for lobster, and found satellite data could effectively track vegetation extent. Published in Science of the Total Environment, the research demonstrated how tracking changes in seagrass and macroalgae habitats can help predict future lobster populations.
