Measuring growth of shape in stony corals
Tim Pickering
Pickering_T at usp.ac.fj
Tue Jun 5 17:22:02 EDT 2001
Dear Coral Listers
I am following this thread about measurement of coral growth with
interest. My MSc student Kalo Pakoa wants to compare growth of
corallimorphs (Discosoma) cultivated under different conditions.
Corallimorphs are relatively simple in that the discs can be regarded
as a 2-D shape and area measured by digital photography or even
its diameter directly by vernier if one gets the measurement quickly
before touching the organism.
However corallimorphs and soft corals have an additional problem
not faced by researchers of hard corals - their morphology is quite
plastic. Under different lighting conditions, corallimorphs will
change their shape, eg become flattened out, or form a trumpet
shape. The same crittur can thus have different sizes under
different lighting, which makes it hard to compare the effect of light
on growth.
I know Simon Ellis in Poehnpei has adopted an approach of
"harrassing" a soft coral until it shrinks down to a "standard size",
then measuring it.
Has anyone else faced this problem, and found ways to overcome
it?
Tim Pickering
The University of the South Pacific
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