Branching coral morphology affects physiological performance in the absence of colony integration

Abstract

For nearly 50 years, analyses of coral physiology have used small coral fragments (nubbins) to make inferences about larger colonies. However, scaling in corals shows that linear extrapolations from nubbins to whole colonies can be misleading, because polyps in nubbins are divorced of their morphologically complex and physiologically integrated corallum. We tested for the effects of integration among branches in determining size-dependent calcification of the coral Pocillopora spp. under elevated P CO 2. Area-normalized net calcification was compared between branches (nubbins), aggregates of nubbins (complex morphologies without integration) and whole colonies (physiologically integrated) at 400 versus approximately 1000 μatm P CO 2. Net calcification was unaffected by P CO 2, but differed among colony types. Single nubbins grew faster than whole colonies, but when aggregated, nubbins changed calcification to match whole colonies even though they lacked integration among branches. Corallum morphology causes the phenotype of branching corals to differ from the summation of their branches.