2D and 3D coral models imaged in Curaçao: George, Mullinix, et al PeerJ 2021

Abstract from the article associated with the dataset: George,
Mullinix, et al PeerJ 2021. Reef-building corals are ecosystem engineers
that compete with other benthic or- ganisms for space and resources.
Corals harvest energy through their surface by photosynthesis and
heterotrophic feeding, and they divert part of this energy to defend their
outer colony perimeter against competitors. Here, we hypothesized that
corals with a larger space-filling surface and smaller perimeters increase
energy gain while reducing the exposure to competitors. This predicted an
association between these two geometric properties of corals and the
competitive outcome against other benthic organisms. To test the
prediction, fifty coral colonies from the Caribbean island of Curac ̧ao
were rendered using digital 3D and 2D reconstructions. The surface areas,
perimeters, box-counting dimensions (as a proxy of space-filling
property), and other geometric properties were extracted and analyzed with
respect to the percentage of the perimeter losing or winning against
competitors based on the coral tissue apparent growth or damage. The
increase in surface space-filling dimension was the only significant
single indicator of coral winning outcomes, but the combination of surface
space-filling dimension with perimeter length increased the statistical
prediction of coral competition outcomes. Corals with larger surface
space-filling dimensions (Ds > 2) and smaller
perimeters displayed more winning outcomes, confirming the initial
hypothesis. We propose that the space-filling property of coral surfaces
complemented with other proxies of coral competitiveness, such as life
history traits, will provide a more accurate quantitative characterization
of coral competition outcomes on coral reefs. This framework also applies
to other organisms or ecological systems that rely on complex surfaces to
obtain energy for competition.