Chandler, Josie F., Figueira, Will F., Burn, Deborah, Doll, Peter C., Johandes, Abby, Piccaluga, Agustina, and Pratchett, Morgan S. (2024) Predicting 3D and 2D surface area of corals from simple field measurements. Scientific Reports, 14. 20549.

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Abstract

The structural architecture of coral reefs is a known predictor of species richness, fish biomass and reef resilience. At a smaller scale, three-dimensional (3D) surface area of corals is a fundamental determinant of physical and biological processes. Quantifying the 3D surface area of corals has applications for a broad range of scientific disciplines, including carbonate production estimates, coral predation studies, and assessments of reef growth. Here, we present morphotaxon-specific conversion metrics to estimate total 3D surface area and projected 2D surface area of individual colonies from simple field measurements of colony maximum diameter. Underwater photogrammetry techniques were used to quantify surface area and estimate conversion metrics. Bayesian models showed strong non-linear (power) relationships between colony maximum diameter and both total 3D surface area and projected 2D surface area for 13 out of 15 morphotaxa. This study presents a highly resolved and efficient method for obtaining critical surface area assessments of corals for various applications, including assessments of biotic surface area, tissue biomass, calcification rates, coral demographic rates, and reef restoration monitoring.

Item ID:	85059
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	2045-2322
Copyright Information:	Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http:// creative commons. org/licenses/by- nc-nd/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2024
Funders:	ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Research Data:	https://doi.org/10.25903/m2ap-4p06
Date Deposited:	09 Apr 2025 02:37
FoR Codes:	31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) @ 100%
SEO Codes:	28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280102 Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences @ 80% 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1805 Marine systems and management > 180501 Assessment and management of benthic marine ecosystems @ 20%
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