CTcoral

Cold-Water Coral Morphoplasticity

Framework-forming cold-water corals are key habitat engineers that build reefs in the deep sea, serving as biodiversity hotspots. These corals exhibit high morphoplasticity - variability in corallite, colony, and framework structures - but how this flexibility shapes reef development remains poorly understood due to the absence of observer-independent, quantitative analysis methods.

The DFG-funded project CTcoral addresses this gap by developing automated tools to classify and characterise the dominant framework-forming cold-water corals using 3D computed tomography (CT) scans. This interdisciplinary effort brings together marine geoscientists and computer scientists from the Zuse Institute Berlin to create robust, scalable methods for morphological and taxonomic analysis.

CTcoral will not only advance our understanding of coral morphodynamics and reef formation but also contribute to the emerging field of cybertaxonomy. The methodologies developed are designed to be transferable to other organism groups, offering broad utility in biological and ecological research.

related publications:

Schmitt B, Titschack J, Baum D (2022) Polyp-Cavity Segmentation of Cold-Water Corals guided by Ambient Occlusion and Ambient Curvature. Eurographics Workshop on Visual Computing for Biology and Medicine (VCBM):71-80