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Science 8 August 1980:
Vol. 209. no. 4457, pp. 713 - 715
DOI: 10.1126/science.209.4457.713
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Articles

Do Corals Lie About Their Age? Some Demographic Consequences of Partial Mortality, Fission, and Fusion

T. P. HUGHES 1 and J. B. C. JACKSON 1

1 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, and Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory, Box 35, Discovery Bay, Jamaica, West Indies

Population dynamics of corals and other colonial animals are complicated by their modular construction and growth. Partial colony mortality, colony fission, and colony fusion distort any simple relationship between size and age among reef corals.

Submitted on March 17, 1980
Revised on May 7, 1980


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Hurricane Allen's Impact on Jamaican Coral Reefs.
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