ORCID

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The occurrence and proliferation of reef-forming corals is of vast importance in terms of the biodiversity they support and the ecosystem services they provide. The complex three-dimensional structures engineered by corals are comprised of both live and dead coral, and the function, growth and stability of these systems will depend on the ratio of both. To model how the ratio of live : dead coral may change, the ‘Goldilocks Principle’ can be used, where organisms will only flourish if conditions are ‘just right’. With data from particle imaging velocimetry and numerical smooth particle hydrodynamic modelling with two simple rules, we demonstrate how this principle can be applied to a model reef system, and how corals are effectively optimizing their own local flow requirements through habitat engineering. Building on advances here, these approaches can be used in conjunction with numerical modelling to investigate the growth and mortality of biodiversity supporting framework in present-day and future coral reef structures.

Publication Date

2021-08-11

Publication Title

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Volume

288

Issue

1956

ISSN

0962-8452

Acceptance Date

2021-07-15

Deposit Date

2021-11-08

Embargo Period

2021-08-12

Funding

This work was supported by the European Commission through the ASSEMBLE project EcoLophelia (grant agreement no. 227799) conducted in 2014 at the Sven Loven Centre for Marine Sciences-Tjärnö from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden). This work was supported by an NERC Doctoral Training Partnership (grant no. NE/L002558/1) to K.G., Independent Research Fellowships for N.A.K. and S.J.H. (NE/H010025, NE/K009028/1, NE/K009028/2) and the Royal Society of Edinburgh/Scottish Government to N.A.K. (RSE 48701/1). Funding to A.I.L. was supported by the Swedish Research Council FORMAS (grant no. 215-2012-1134). This paper is a contribution to the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 678760 (ATLAS) and no. 818123 (iAtlantic), and the UKRI GCRF One Ocean Hub (NE/S008950/1). It reflects the authors' views, and the European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

Keywords

Goldilocks Principle, Lophelia pertusa, flow velocity, smoothed-particle hydrodynamics modelling, particle image velocimetry, coral

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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