At present, studies on settlement in marine fouling communities are limited to easily accessible habitats that can be monitored on a daily basis. There are large knowledge gaps regarding settlement patterns on sub-daily temporal scales and in remote areas. In order to fill these knowledge gaps, we have designed an underwater camera system named CATAIN—CAmera To Analyze INvertebrates—and have compared our approach to standard methods. The key innovation of CATAIN is that the acrylic endcap of the housing serves as the fouling panel itself, with organisms being photographed through the transparent endcap from the underside. This set-up circumvents the common problem of biofouling on camera housings. Using this system, researchers can record high-resolution images of sessile benthic invertebrates and macroalgae at time intervals ranging from just a few minutes to several days and for months to a year at a time. CATAIN enables studies on temporal patterns in settlement, postsettlement mortality, growth, and other ecological parameters with no human intervention. This system expands sampling possibilities in remote environments where it is impractical for a researcher to be present every day.

中文翻译：

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CATAIN：用于以高时间分辨率研究污染群落沉降的水下摄像系统

目前，对海洋污染群落沉降的研究仅限于可以每天监测的易于接近的栖息地。关于次日时间尺度和偏远地区的定居模式存在很大的知识差距。为了填补这些知识空白，我们设计了一个名为 CATAIN 的水下摄像系统——CAmera To Analyze INvertebrates——并将我们的方法与标准方法进行了比较。CATAIN 的关键创新在于，外壳的丙烯酸端盖本身用作防污板，通过透明端盖从底部拍摄生物体。这种设置避免了相机外壳上生物污染的常见问题。使用这个系统，研究人员可以记录固着的底栖无脊椎动物和大型藻类的高分辨率图像，时间间隔从几分钟到几天不等，一次可以持续几个月到一年。CATAIN 能够在没有人为干预的情况下研究定居、定居后死亡率、生长和其他生态参数的时间模式。该系统扩展了远程环境中的采样可能性，在这些环境中，研究人员每天都在场是不切实际的。