During spring and summer 2017, surveys were carried out on board of Daedalus targeting the ROV exploration of Ligurian seamounts by means of MultiPluto. Departing harbour was La Spezia. Five seamounts (Ulisse, Penelope, Janua, S. Lucia, Occhiali) were explored for a total of 19 dives carried out between 135 m and 875 m depth. For each mount ROV explorations aimed at characterizing the communities thriving on the tops.

Oceanographic probes for temperature and salinity were deployed attached to the ROV. Seven additional dives were carried out in adjacent deep-sea sites, including the CWC tanatocoenosis of Portofino and the Entella Canyon. A total of 32 samples were collected for both taxonomic and genetic analyses carried out by UNIGE and UNIBO.

On-board of Daedalus were present the captain Guido Gay (AzioneMare), PI Marzia Bo and post-doc SIR Martina Coppari, post-doc Francesco Massa. Each ROV exploration was preceded by a topographic description by means of Side Scan Sonar in order to localize the hard-bottoms where to direct the ROV surveys accounting for a total of 23 hours of video material.