Data from 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.

预测种群统计速率是全球变化背景下预判生态系统未来走向的核心环节之一。本研究针对一类高度多样的群居共生生物——石珊瑚（scleractinian corals），检验是否可通过形态学性状预测其生长速率。我们旨在解答两个关键科学问题：其一，珊瑚的生长模式为等速生长还是异速生长；其二，珊瑚生长速率的绝大多数变异源自物种水平还是形态类群水平。本研究以隶属于5个形态类群的11个珊瑚物种为研究对象，以平面投影面积的变化量作为生长量的衡量指标，监测时长达5年以上。研究结果显示，相较于物种分类，珊瑚的生长速率可通过群体尺寸与形态特征实现更为精准的预测。珊瑚群体尺寸遵循幂律缩放定律，其恒定指数为0.91。尽管珊瑚属于群居生物，但其生长过程始终保持一致的异速缩放模式。这种一致性简化了预测群落对干扰与气候变化响应的研究工作。