Habitat structural complexity is created by biotic and abiotic processes that operate over a range of scales. This can be seen clearly on coral reefs, where corals and reef geomorphology create structure from mm to km scales. Here, we quantified the relative contribution of biotic and abiotic structures to habitat complexity using ‘Structure from Motion’, a technology that allows accurate 3D models of environments to be reconstructed from overlapping photographs. We calculated the linear fractal dimension of these models using a virtual analogue of a profile gauge. By adjusting the spacing between profile gauge rods, we partitioned structural complexity into a series of scale intervals. We identified scales that were most indicative of coral cover (0.5-16 cm) and reef geomorphology (16-256 cm). We found that reefs in the Main Hawaiian Islands have more complexity at finer scales than reefs in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, which we attribute to the latitudinal gradient in coral cover along the archipelago. At coarser scales, islands at each end of the archipelago have sites with high structural complexity, with less complexity in the center of the archipelago. These differences are consistent with geologic factors shaping island uplift, subsidence, and reef formation. In addition, we found that different coral genera and morphologies display unique patterns of fractal dimension, with branching Porites corals creating the greatest amount of habitat structure at nearly all scales. This study demonstrates how multi-scale approaches can be used to identify the processes responsible for reef structural complexity and changes in structure over time.

Progressive concentric (centripetal) loss of vision is one pattern of visual field loss in retinitis pigmentosa. This study provides the first clinicopathologic correlations for this form of retinitis pigmentosa. A family with autosomal dominant concentric retinitis pigmentosa was examined clinically and with visual function tests. A post-mortem eye of an affected 94 year old family member was processed for histopathology and immunocytochemistry with retinal cell specific antibodies. Unrelated simplex/multiplex patients with concentric retinitis pigmentosa were also examined. Affected family members of the eye donor and patients from the other families had prominent peripheral pigmentary retinopathy with more normal appearing central retina, good visual acuity, concentric field loss, normal or near normal rod and cone sensitivity within the preserved visual field, and reduced rod and cone electroretinograms. The eye donor, at age 90, had good acuity and function in a central island. Grossly, the central region of the donor retina appeared thinned but otherwise normal, while the far periphery contained heavy bone spicule pigment. Microscopically the central retina showed photoreceptor outer segment shortening and some photoreceptor cell loss. The mid periphery had a sharp line of demarcation where more central photoreceptors were near normal except for very short outer segments and peripheral photoreceptors were absent. Rods and cones showed abrupt loss of outer segments and cell death at this interface. It is concluded that concentric retinitis pigmentosa is a rare but recognizable phenotype with slowly progressive photoreceptor death from the far periphery toward the central retina. The disease is retina-wide but shows regional variation in severity of degeneration; photoreceptor death is severe in the peripheral retina with an abrupt edge between viable and degenerate photoreceptors. Peripheral to central gradients of unknown retinal molecule(s) may be defective or modify photoreceptor degeneration in concentric retinitis pigmentosa.

Large animals are severely depleted in many ecosystems, yet we are only beginning to understand the ecological implications of their loss. To empirically measure the short-term effects of removing large animals from an ocean ecosystem, we used exclosures to remove large fish from a near-pristine coral reef at Palmyra Atoll, Central Pacific Ocean. We identified a range of effects that followed from the removal of these large fish. These effects were revealed within weeks of their removal. Removing large fish (1) altered the behavior of prey fish; (2) reduced rates of herbivory on certain species of reef algae; (3) had both direct positive (reduced mortality of coral recruits) and indirect negative (through reduced grazing pressure on competitive algae) impacts on recruiting corals; and (4) tended to decrease abundances of small mobile benthic invertebrates. Results of this kind help advance our understanding of the ecological importance of large animals in ecosystems. © 2010 The Author(s).