Editorial: Optics and ecophysiology of coral reef organisms: volume II

Particularly, we anticipate that optical methods will become the state of the art for large scale, rapid measurement of coral physiological response in assays aimed at determining the fitness of selectively bred coral genets, and the efficacy of other treatments aimed at increasing stress resilience. [...]highlighting the potential of novel optical methods in coral research, Jaffe et al. present a method to estimate key structural parameters of coral biology (polyp volume and surface area) with high accuracy and resolution via analysis of optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans of living corals. Corals can exhibit pronounced tissue plasticity and analysis of OCT data shows that such tissue movement can easily change surface area to volume ratios by a factor of 2 or more. Conflict of interest The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.