Transport properties of 2D Octocorallia uncover niche specification

Octocoralia, cousins to hard corals, have tree-like and mesh-like tissue networks that act as distribution networks for food between individuals within a colony. These tissue networks must efficiently route resources while simultaneously balancing the cost of building new materials and maintaining their infrastructure in the face of environmental changes, which constrains their spatial and topological organization. We compiled an image database of gorgonian morphologies including extant species sampled from every gorgonian order and several morphological variants of individual species. We then calculated geometric and topological metrics to quantify gorgonian morphologies and find that there are clear distinctions between how the two morphotypes balance building cost, efficiency, and robustness. We find that tree-like networks are much less costly with poor efficiency and robustness, however, mesh-like networks gain much more efficiency and robustness for proportionally little extra cost. As a whole, this work demonstrates that directing our focus to not-well-studied network systems like those of gorgonian morphology can bring forth novel information on network optimization and identify how relatively simple growth processes lead to optimized morphologies for survival.