Allometric growth in reef-building corals.
Predicting demographic rates is a critical part of forecasting the future of ecosystems under global change. Here, we test if growth rates can be predicted from morphological traits for a highly diverse group of colonial symbiotic organisms: scleractinian corals. We ask whether growth is isometric or allometric among corals, and whether most variation in coral growth rates occurs at the level of the species or morphological group. We estimate growth as change in planar area for 11 species, across five morphological groups and over 5 years. We show that coral growth rates are best predicted from colony size and morphology rather than species. Coral size follows a power scaling law with a constant exponent of 0.91. Despite being colonial organisms, corals have consistent allometric scaling in growth. This consistency simplifies the task of projecting community responses to disturbance and climate change.
Centre for Biological Diversity, Scottish Oceans Institute, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9TH, UK maadd@st-andrews.ac.uk.
Maria
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2077-7055
M
Dornelas
Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia.
Joshua S
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5005-6227
JS
Madin
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland 4811, Australia.
Andrew H
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8504-4077
AH
Baird
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland 4811, Australia.|Marine Biology and Aquaculture, College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland 4811, Australia.
Sean R
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1537-0859
SR
Connolly
D000818:Animals; D037421:Anthozoa / Q000254:growth & development*; D057231:Climate Change; D057894:Coral Reefs
Scleractinia; allometry; morphology; scaling; traits