Scleractinian corals, which create complex three-dimensional carbonate structures, are the foundation of coral reef ecosystems. There are a variety of coral growth forms or ‘morphologies’ that have distinct advantages and disadvantages when corals compete for space and light, and when they are exposed to hydrodynamic disturbances. We developed a novel three-dimensional functional-structural model, Coralcraft , to investigate how hydrodynamic disturbances (of different frequencies and intensities) influence coral communities. Using five common coral morphologies—encrusting, hemispherical, tabular, corymbose and branching— Coralcraft tracks the temporal dynamics of simulated coral communities. Six metrics are considered: (1) the number of colonies, (2) the percentage cover and (3) the volume of each morphology; (4) the structural complexity (rugosity) and (5) the total coral cover of the community; and (6) the diversity of morphologies in the community as calculated according to metrics (1)–(3). Frequent high intensity disturbances caused the greatest reduction to the structural complexity and morphological diversity of simulated communities, with some variation depending on the metric used to calculate diversity. Conversely, scenarios of no disturbance or infrequent disturbance (of low or high intensity) led to communities with higher structural complexity and a higher diversity of morphologies. These results indicate that disturbance frequency may play a greater role in eroding structural complexity and diversity than disturbance intensity. Importantly, given that the scientific coral reef literature generally uses percentage cover, the other metrics we considered—number of colonies, volume, rugosity and diversity—captured the dynamics of impact and recovery from disturbance in subtly different ways. While there are many models for corals, Coralcraft is the first to model the temporal dynamics of three-dimensional growth, competition and response to disturbance in a community with different coral morphologies.

中文翻译：

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频繁的水动力扰动降低了 3D 模拟珊瑚群落的形态多样性和结构复杂性

石珊瑚形成复杂的三维碳酸盐结构，是珊瑚礁生态系统的基础。当珊瑚争夺空间和光，以及当它们暴露于水动力干扰时，有多种珊瑚生长形式或“形态”具有明显的优势和劣势。我们开发了一种新颖的三维功能结构模型 Coralcraft，以研究水动力扰动（不同频率和强度）如何影响珊瑚群落。Coralcraft 使用五种常见的珊瑚形态——结壳、半球形、板状、伞状和分枝——跟踪模拟珊瑚群落的时间动态。考虑六个指标：（1）菌落数量，（2）覆盖百分比和（3）每种形态的体积；(4) 结构复杂性（粗糙度）和 (5) 群落的总珊瑚覆盖率；(6) 根据指标 (1)-(3) 计算的群落形态多样性。频繁的高强度干扰导致模拟群落的结构复杂性和形态多样性的最大降低，根据用于计算多样性的度量会有一些变化。相反，无干扰或不频繁干扰（低强度或高强度）的情景导致社区具有更高的结构复杂性和更高的形态多样性。这些结果表明，干扰频率可能比干扰强度在侵蚀结构复杂性和多样性方面发挥更大的作用。重要的是，鉴于科学珊瑚礁文献通常使用百分比覆盖率，我们考虑的其他指标——菌落数量、体积、粗糙度和多样性——以略有不同的方式捕捉了影响和从干扰中恢复的动态。虽然有许多珊瑚模型，但 Coralcraft 是第一个模拟具有不同珊瑚形态的群落中三维生长、竞争和对干扰的响应的时间动态。