Reef Corals: How To Structure A Complex Body Plan

Phenotypic flexibility enables multicellular organisms to adjust morphologies to variable environmental challenges. Such plastic variations are also documented in reef corals. Coral colonies are made of multiple genetically identical physiologically integrated modules (polyps). Like other sedentary colonial marine organisms, corals may generate extremely broad structures, changing their morphologies by growing new polyps above existing structures. In branching forms, two higher levels of organization exist, the 'branch' and the 'colony'...