Palm – A pioneering study carried out by researchers from the Institute of Interdisciplinary Physics and Complex Systems (IFISC, UIB-CSIC) in the Spanish Balearic Islands has revealed universal spatial patterns in the coral reefs from all over the world, regardless of their location.
This discovery provides new knowledge for the conservation and restoration of the reefssince it links its structures to mathematical principles, the UIB has highlighted in a statement about this study published in the journal ‘Global Ecology and Biogeography’.
The study reveals that coral reefs around the planet exhibit universal spatial properties, such as fractal geometries and coherent macroecological patterns, regardless of their geographic location.
The research, carried out by an IFIS team in collaboration with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), provides an unprecedented insight into the structure and distribution of coral reefs on a global scale.
The study has been made possible thanks to the unprecedented availability of a map of tropical coral reefs, the Allen Coral Atlas (ACA), based on satellite images from the Planet satellites, classified through machine learning that uses appropriate information on the ground.
The team, formed by Àlex Giménez-Romero, Manuel Matías and Carlos Duarte, compiled from the ACA a comprehensive inventory of more than one and a half million individual shallow-water tropical coral reefs, with a total area amounting to more than of 50,000 km².
Giménez-Romero, lead author of the study, highlights the discovery of “three universal laws common in all coral reef provinces.”
He has detailed that “the size frequency distribution and the distance distribution between reefs follow power laws,” which means that, “although most reefs are small, a few are exceptionally large, creating a predictable pattern that remains constant in different regions.”
The finding of common scaling laws in the coral provinces, corresponding to distant areas subjected to different environmental and hydrodynamic conditions, was quite unexpected, since these are important drivers of the development of coral reefs, which raises questions about the mechanisms that exist behind this universal behavior.
The researchers also showed that coral reefs develop intricate fractal patterns. “We discovered that coral reefs have a perimeter fractal dimension,” explains Giménez-Romero, who indicates that these fractal dimensions “allow us to understand the complexity and roughness of the reef structures.”
Manuel Matías adds that “a perimeter fractal dimension of 1.3 indicates that the boundaries of coral reefs are more complex than a smooth line (dimension 1), but less intricate than extremely convoluted coastlines (dimension 2). “The surface fractal dimension of 1.6 suggests significant structural complexity, which appears crucial for supporting marine biodiversity.”
The study’s findings have important implications for coral reef conservation and restoration efforts because understanding these universal spatial properties is crucial to quantifying the scale of effort needed to conserve and restore these vital ecosystems, and should guide coral morphology. restored.
The team’s analysis suggests that the observed patterns are likely due to highly conserved interactions between biological, physical and chemical processes along geological time ladders.
This discovery opens new avenues for modeling reef growth, since the observed patterns should comply with the universal behavior observed, increasing the understanding of these complex ecosystems.
Research reveals that coral reefs tend to evolve from simple, rounded shapes to more complex and elongated ones. “Our analysis suggests that, as reefs grow, they develop increasingly intricate fractal structures,” explains Giménez-Romero. “This evolution follows consistent mathematical patterns in different geographical locations,” he says.
The research provides new insight into coral reef formations and underlying mechanisms, and lays the foundation for future studies exploring the factors driving these universal patterns and their implications for reef resilience to global environmental changes.
In addition to advancing scientific understanding of coral reef ecosystems, the study provides valuable insights to policymakers and conservationists working to protect these critical marine habitats.