[Coral-List] Coral Surface Area-Responses

[Michael Risk]

I am afraid that what this thread demonstrates is: there are few fields
of science more littered with the debris of re-invented wheels than
coral reef biology.

Turns out there have been DOZENS of these exercises, since Rose and
Risk 1985. None of them built on what went before, they all started
afresh.

Just think how much further ahead we would be if we even stood on the
shoulders of pygmies...or read more.

Mike

On Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:14:53 -0400
 Joe Schittone <Joe.Schittone at noaa.gov> wrote:
> ?????? ??????Hi Tyler,????Seems you've gotten plenty input. I've
> learned a lot from them, ??and??from the refs.????Re my own contrib,
> I should've noted that it models the SA of ??a??cylinder standing on
> end, which is what was needed for purposes, ??but??the formula can be
> easily adapted for different ellipsoidal figures.????Also, my
> equation was always accurate to w/in ~2%, and almost always ??to??1%
> (the former only for /very/ elongated cylinders). So, ??much??depends
> on the level of precision needed for what you're doing.????And I had
> to have something that didn't require differentiation ??or??trig.,
> i.e.,??that could be loaded into Excel. For example, here's ??what I
> ended up??with in formula bar:
> =(PI()*a/2*b/2)+(2*PI()*([a+b]/4)*h).????Let me know what equations
> you derive and end up using for your work,????Joe????????Tyler Smith
> wrote:????> Fantabulous.   Apparently people have lots of
> experience??estimating ??> coral surface area????> ????> ??I'll
> summarize the advice below:??

Mike Risk
Marine Ecologist
PO Box 1195
Durham Ontario
N0G 1R0