Inferring demographic processes from population size structure in corals

Analysis of coral population size structure is difficult because corals vary enormously in size. The great differences in colony size are caused by the coral colony growth process. We studied size distributions in coral species and found that analyzing coral size frequencies using log transformations of colony size has a number of advantages. Coral size distributions become comparable within and between species across space and through time. Such analyses that (1) small colony size and positively skewed size-frequency distributions characterize populations of brooding species. (2) Spawning species show large colony size and negatively skewed size-frequency distributions. (3) Populations in marginal habitats are characterized by a coefficient of variation higher than 0.50. The described method of log transforming size frequency data of coral populations provides both scientists and wildlife managers with a new tool to monitor the dynamics of coral populations