Fig 1.
Study sites close to Puerto Morelos, Mexico.
The reef crest as visible from satellite imagery is indicated in brown. Catedral is a shallow back reef environment (2 m depth) behind the reef crest and Tanchacté a deeper fore reef site (7 m depth) 2.5 km further north.
Fig 2.
Colony-scale growth of six Caribbean coral species.
The same coral colonies were photographed in subsequent years and colours display the distance between dense point clouds (red > yellow > green > blue) overlaid in the software CloudCompare. Note that highest growth often occurs on upper colony surfaces (A, C, D), around edges (B) or on bumps, columns and frond edges (B, E, F). A) The cavity in the top left area indicates the position of a core taken in 2021 for analysis with CT scans. B) Partial mortality between surveys shows the prior colony model below the more recent one.
Fig 3.
Colony-scale growth metrics (average ± SD) for six Mexican Caribbean coral species comparing two reef sites.
Species: OFAV: Orbicella faveolata, PAST: Porites astreoides, SSID: Siderastrea siderea, PSTR: Pseudodiploria strigosa, AAGA: Agaricia agaricites and ATEN: Agaricia tenuifolia. Reef sites: Orange: Fore reef, green: Back reef. Panel B) additionally displays linear extension rates obtained by CT scanning of coral cores from the same sites (crosses; Medellín-Maldonado et al., in preparation).
Table 1.
Photogrammetry-derived colony-scale growth metrics (average ± SD) for six common Caribbean coral species at a fore reef site (7 m depth) and a back reef site (2 m depth) close to Puerto Morelos, Mexico.
Fig 4.
Comparison of different methods to calculate volume increase and calcification rates.
Each point represents one colony (n = 38) of one of six species (OFAV: Orbicella faveolata, PAST: Porites astreoides, SSID: Siderastrea siderea, PSTR: Pseudodiploria strigosa, AAGA: Agaricia agaricites and ATEN: Agaricia tenuifolia). Y-axes: Best estimate volume increase (A and B) was measured directly between overlying surface meshes and multiplied by skeletal densities to yield best estimate calcification rates (C and D). X-axes: A) Vertical volume increase was calculated using the 2.5D volume command in CloudCompare. B) Initial surface area was multiplied with average linear extension to yield potential volume increase, and then C) multiplied by skeletal densities to yield linear calcification. D) Average linear extension was replaced by maximum linear extension rates to yield maximum linear calcification. R2 in plots indicates the fit of data to the ideal line of prediction (y = x).