The 3D Reconstruction of Pocillopora Colony Sheds Light on the Growth Pattern of This Reef-Building Coral

Yixin Li; Tingyu Han; Kun Bi; Kun Liang; Junyuan Chen; Jing Lu; Chunpeng He; Zuhong Lu

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2020.101069

The 3D Reconstruction of Pocillopora Colony Sheds Light on the Growth Pattern of This Reef-Building Coral

iScience. 2020 Jun 26;23(6):101069. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101069. Epub 2020 Apr 18.

Authors

Yixin Li¹, Tingyu Han¹, Kun Bi¹, Kun Liang², Junyuan Chen², Jing Lu³, Chunpeng He⁴, Zuhong Lu⁵

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China.
² Nanjing Institute of Paleontology and Geology, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, PO Box 643, Beijing 100044, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Beijing 100044, China. Electronic address: lujing@ivpp.ac.cn.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China. Electronic address: cphe@seu.edu.cn.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China. Electronic address: zhlu@seu.edu.cn.

Abstract

Coral reefs are formed by living polyps, and understanding the dynamic processes behind the reefs is crucial for marine ecosystem restoration. However, these processes are still unclear because the growth and budding patterns of living polyps are poorly known. Here, we investigate the growth pattern of a widely distributed reef-building coral Pocillopora damicornis from Xisha Islands using high-resolution computed tomography. We examine the corallites in a single corallum of the species in detail, to interpret the budding, growth, and distribution pattern of the polyps, to reconstruct the growth pattern of this important reef-building species. Our results reveal a three-stage growth pattern of P. damicornis, based on different growth bundles that are secreted by polyps along the dichotomous growth axes of the corallites. Our work on the three-dimensional reconstruction of calice and inter-septal space structure of P. damicornis sheds lights on its reef-building processes by reconstructing the budding patterns.

Keywords: Biological Sciences; Marine Organism; Methodology in Biological Sciences.