Structure-from-motion photogrammetry demonstrates variability in coral growth within colonies and across habitats.

ABSTRACT: Coral growth is an important metric of coral health and underpins reef-scale functional attributes such as structural complexity and calcium carbonate production. There persists, however, a paucity of growth data for most reef-building regions, especially for coral species whose skeletal architecture prevents the use of traditional methods such as coring and Alizarin staining. We used structure-from-motion photogrammetry to quantify a range of colony-scale growth metrics for six coral species in the Mexican Caribbean and present a newly developed workflow to measure colony volume change over time. Our results provide the first growth metrics for two species that are now major space occupiers on Caribbean reefs, Agaricia agaricites and Agaricia tenuifolia. We also document higher linear ext

SUBMITTER: Lange ID 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9668137 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature