Partitioning colony size variation into growth and partial mortality

For many organisms, including humans, body size tends to grow with age. In modular organisms, like reef corals, body size can either grow or shrink with age as the modules that make up their bodies are added or lost. We just published a paper in Biology Letters that tracked many types of corals over six years and built a model for modular growth that separates gains and losses. In doing so, we find that corals that can add modules faster are also more prone to losing modules faster, revealing a trade-off of modular life (see Figure).