Abstract

Coral reefs are a valuable and vulnerable marine ecosystem. The structure of coral reefs influences their health and ability to fulfill ecosystem functions and services. However,
monitoring reef corals largely relies on 1D or 2D estimates of coral cover and abundance
that overlook change in ecologically significant aspects of the reefs because they do not
incorporate vertical or volumetric information. This study explores the relationship
between 2D and 3D metrics of coral size. We show that surface area and volume scale
consistently with planar area, albeit with morphotype specific conversion parameters.
We use a photogrammetric approach using open-source software to estimate the ability
of photogrammetry to provide measurement estimates of corals in 3D. Technological
developments have made photogrammetry a valid and practical technique for studying
coral reefs. We anticipate that these techniques for moving coral research from 2D into
3D will facilitate answering ecological questions by incorporating the 3rd dimension
into monitoring.