Effects of coral colony morphologies on mass transfer and susceptibility to thermal stress

Abstract

This study tested the hypothesis that corals of the same species, but of varying size and shape, may respond differently to thermal stress because of different mass transfer capacities. High mass transfer rates are an advantage under thermal stress, and mass transfer rates are assumed to scale with size. Yet large, corymbose Acropora colonies are more vulnerable to thermal stress than small corymbose Acropora colonies. We took a two-tiered approach to examine the differences in the susceptibility of different coral morphologies to thermal stress. Firstly, the response of several coral species of different sizes and shapes were measured in the field through a thermal stress event. Secondly, diffusion experiments were conducted using gypsum-coral models of different morphologies to estimate mass transfer rates, to test whether dissolution rates differed in accordance with colony morphology and colony size. Coral colonies with a high height to diameter ratio were subjected to more partial mortality than flat colonies. These results agree with mass transfer theory. The diffusion experiments showed that in a low-flow environment, small encrusting colonies had higher rates of dissolution than large flat or small branched colonies. These results, however, disagree with mass transfer theory. We show that the volume of space between colony branches predicts the response to thermal stress in the field. Small encrusting colonies were most likely to maintain mass transfer and were therefore more likely to survive thermal stress than large branched colonies. We predict that an increase in the frequency and intensity of thermal stresses may see a shift from large branched coral colonies to both small colonies, and flat-massive colonies with low aspect ratios.