Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are important tools to conserve biodiversity and enhance ecosystem services in our oceans. To reach the objectives of these areas, monitoring biodiversity is pivotal to support decision-makers to efficiently manage MPAs. Accurate and sensitive monitoring techniques are essential to target specific groups of organisms and to maximize time and resources. In this study, we compare performance of the non-destructive survey methods Underwater Visual Census (UVC), Baited Remote Underwater Videos (BRUV), and Remote Underwater Videos (RUV) on macrofaunal communities at Professor Luiz Saldanha Marine Park (PMPLS), Portugal. The comparison aims to provide information on abundance and diversity of macrofaunal communities, as well as on method performance in indicators such as species identification success, time effort, and difference throughout the areas of protection of the PMPLS. The study indicates that UVC is more suitable to monitor cryptic species and after closer consideration seems to be less time-consuming whereas BRUV and RUV show more precision in species identification.
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