Growth rates often measured as linear extension rates can serve as a proxy for organismal performance across environments, yet few estimates of these growth rates exist, and fewer are reported from multi-year monitoring. We studied the effect of species, depth, exposure, and life stages on the linear extension rates of common octocorals inhabiting Caribbean reefs. We monitored 16 species from the families Briareidae, Gorgoniidae, and Plexauridae, including eight genera: Antillogorgia, Briareum, Eunicea, Gorgonia, Muricea, Muriceopsis, Plexaura, and Plexaurella. We surveyed over 2,000 colonies across eight reefs in Southwest Puerto Rico from 2003 to 2006. Our surveys include reefs along a gradient of water motion from inside protected reefs to offshore unprotected reefs and from shallow (5 m) forereefs to deeper environments reaching 25 m. We observed that linear extension rates vary across species and largely follow branch thickness variation and colony architecture, with thin plume-like shapes growing faster. We also found that in 7 out of the 16 species, colonies from shallow habitats with brighter and warmer environments have higher growth rates than colonies in deep, low energy, and darker areas. Importantly, small/juvenile corals of most species (<10 cm) grew faster than adult colonies. Our data highlight the possibility that, as climate change continues to deteriorate Caribbean reefs by decimating scleractinian corals and opening new habitat for less vulnerable species, plume-like corals with fast growth rates such as species within the genus Antillogorgia may become the most abundant benthic cnidarians on Caribbean shallow forereefs.

中文翻译：

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加勒比珊瑚礁八珊瑚的不同物种和生命阶段的可变增长

通常以线性延伸率衡量的增长率可以作为跨环境的生物体性能的替代指标，但对这些增长率的估计很少，多年监测报告的报告也较少。我们研究了物种、深度、暴露和生命阶段对居住在加勒比海珊瑚礁中的常见八珊瑚的线性延伸率的影响。我们监测了来自 Briareidae、Gorgoniidae 和 Plexauridae 科的 16 个物种，包括 8 个属：Antillogorgia、Briareum、Eunicea、Gorgonia、Muricea、Muriceopsis、Plexaura 和 Plexaurella。从 2003 年到 2006 年，我们调查了波多黎各西南部八个珊瑚礁的 2,000 多个殖民地。我们的调查包括沿水运动梯度的珊瑚礁，从受保护的珊瑚礁内部到近海未受保护的珊瑚礁，从浅层 (5 m) 前礁到深达 25 m 的环境。我们观察到线性延伸率因物种而异，并且很大程度上遵循分支厚度变化和菌落结构，薄羽状形状生长得更快。我们还发现，在 16 种物种中的 7 种中，来自环境较明亮和温暖的浅层栖息地的群体比深部、低能量和较暗区域的群体具有更高的增长率。重要的是，大多数物种（<10 厘米）的小型/幼年珊瑚比成年珊瑚群生长得更快。我们的数据强调了这样一种可能性，即随着气候变化通过大量珊瑚礁珊瑚和较不脆弱的物种开辟新的栖息地，使加勒比珊瑚礁继续恶化，具有快速生长速度的羽状珊瑚，如Antillogorgia 属内的物种，可能成为最丰富的底栖刺胞动物在加勒比浅滩。