The oceanographic vessel ‘Gaia Blu’ of the National Research Council set sail from the port of Crotone in Calabria to undertake the ‘Ecorest’ campaign, which will monitor deep marine ecosystems and promote the restoration of the most vulnerable habitats in three strategic areas of the Mediterranean: Tyrrhenian Sea southern, northern Ionian and southern Adriatic.
The first part of the expedition, scheduled from 29 March to 11 April, will focus on sites off Santa Maria di Leuca (Lecce) and in the Bari Canyon, which host deep corals, and on the site off Monopoli, which hosts a deep oyster reef. The second part of the expedition will take place in the Gulf of Naples between 4 and 15 May, to study the deep corals of the Dohrn Canyon and an underwater forest populated by black corals. On board the Gaia Blu ship there are researchers and technologists from various research institutes of the National Research Council (Cnr-Ismar, Cnr-Isp, Cnr-Irbim), from the ‘Aldo Moro’ University of Bari, from the Irish University of Galway and national and international research centres, such as the ‘Anton Dohrn’ Zoological Station and the French Institute of Ocean Sciences (Ifremer).
The various habitats will be documented in an innovative way using an underwater robot equipped with high-resolution cameras and mechanical arms. Furthermore, for the first time in Europe, a strategy for the active restoration of these deep habitats will be implemented, both through waste removal operations (such as abandoned fishing gear, objects and plastic bags) and through the positioning of ‘ecoreef ‘, i.e. 3D printed artificial structures to encourage the establishment of new corals in areas where habitats are damaged.
The ecoreefs will be equipped with cameras that will constitute new observation systems of the seabed within the EMSO (European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory) observation network, in which the CNR participates, made up of underwater observatories located in various European sites for monitoring of deep marine ecosystems.
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