The Indo Pacific Coral Finder is an easy-to-use underwater book that makes genus level ID of hard corals possible, both above and below the water. Now, reliable genus level coral identifiation is available to recreational and scientific divers, aquarists, survey teams and coral industry professionals. This article outlines the problems associated with coral identification and how the Indo Pacific Coral Finder solves them.

Throughout the tropical world, reefs protect coasts and support communities to the tune of billions of dollars annually through fisheries and renewable industries such as tourism. Ultimately, the beauty and bounty associated with reefs relates back to the corals that build them.

The beauty and the beast: Acropora secale.

Depending how you add them up there are around 800 species of reef building hard corals ( hermatypic Scleractinia) in the world. Given the visual glamour of corals, their keystone role in building reefs and their contributions to humanity, one would think they would be as well known as fishes.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Ten years after the publication of Charlie Veron's epic three volume treatise Corals of the world, corals remain largely unknown and unnamed by the majority of divers. Things don't fare much better topside with the aquarium community where industry names add to the confusion among the coral loving public.

"To grasp the essence of the problem, try multiplying the 800 species of coral by all their growth forms and arranging them randomly in time and space!"

Why with all the human interest in corals is there so much confusion? The answer lies in the nature of the beast itself. Corals are shape shifters - that is they vary their morphology in response to their environment. The image below captures the problem well. All these corals are the same species showing different responses to their environment - and these are just some of the known growth forms! Growth variation can be both local, across an environmental gradient, and geographic across regions. Corals of the world provides a beautiful introduction to this fundamental aspect of coral biology - see Volumes 1 and 3. The Coral Hub, a web based learning resource under construction, also provides a host of basic coral information aimed at improving coral identification.

Several growth forms displayed by one species, Acropora palifera.

The Problem

To grasp the essence of the problem, try multiplying the 800 species of coral by all their growth forms and then arrange them randomly in time and space! In practical terms this means anyone trying to learn the basics of coral identification is usually overwhelmed by the seemingly endless variation.

From a learning perspective, that is where the problem begins. Consider this challenge. Corals of the world, the only comprehensive reference tool, weighs over seven kilograms and cannot be taken underwater. Furthermore, because underwater communication is difficult, there is no one to help you. Understandably, this is why coral identification is not taking the world by storm and why misinformation is widespread due to desire to put a name on things.

It is important to be clear that there is nothing actually wrong with the coral identification resources themselves. Charlie Veron's Corals of the world and Carden Wallace's Staghorn corals of the World are beautiful, profound scientific works. The problem lies in the fundamental mismatch of applying topside resources to an underwater problem.

Despite exquisite resources divers are not taking up coral identification.

The solution

This coral ID problem has been vexing naturalists, scientists, divers, aquarists and reef resource managers for decades - but how to resolve it? Any solution had to have two qualities - it had to work underwater and it had to be practical. Clearly some sort of plastic tool would solve the underwater part of the problem but solving the option paralysis caused by environmental variation was another challenge.

Looking at the human toolkit, the most powerful feature we all share is the supercomputer like capacity of our eyes and brain to recognize patterns and separate similar objects. Look at objects in front of you right now. You knew they are all different or similar in a fraction of a second almost without thinking. Now try and write that same knowledge down in less than a page such that someone could learn from it… and now translate that into another language and see if the meaning sticks. From the point of view of the early learner, text itself can be the enemy. Clearly, a visual solution is required.

A typical Indo-Pacific reef scene with Corals of the world (COTW) volume numbers superimposed on the corals. Even if you could remember which coral you saw, how would you know which volume to open up after the dive?

The solution, as it turned out, didn't lie in technology but in creating a tool that exploited our visual strengths and our ability to recognize patterns. Today that solution is called the Indo Pacific Coral Finder - a visual guide to the hard coral genera of the Indo-Pacific regardless of growth form. Rather than torture you with the three-year story of how the Coral Finder came to be, let's just jump in and show you how it works.

Key Page of the Indo Pacific Coral Finder.

The Indo Pacific Coral Finder is a robust underwater plastic book. On the cover are eight Key Groups. Key Groups are simple visual or ecological concepts, with choices between the various colony morphologies and characteristics such as branching, meandering ridges and valleys, and large daytime extended polyps.

The remainder of the Indo Pacific Coral Finder is made of 30 Look-alike pages. Look-alike pages present a grid of coral images that match the simple questions you answered to get to the Key Page, i.e. they are a page of best bets. The idea is to provide your onboard eye/brain supercomputer a way to just "see" the answer. In this way the Indo Pacific Coral Finder is not intended to be read as a book (i.e. from left to right) but rather interrogated as a tool where you use visual logic to take you to the most likely answers.

Typical Look-alike page of the Indo Pacific Coral Finder, in full A4 in real life.

Sounds good I hear you say - but what's the catch? Well you're right - there is no such thing as free coral identification. To make this process work there is a small tax on the user. It comes in the form of a small glossary of terms and concepts that need to be understood. Once grasped these concepts (see the blue terms in the diagram below) empower the user to get the most out of the Indo Pacific Coral Finder - that being to recognize 66 genera of hard corals regardless of growth form as well as five genera of stony non-scleractinia (e.g. fire corals, blue corals, lace corals).

The Visual Glossary of the Indo Pacific Coral Finder.

A quick example

Use the graphics below and above to follow along with the identification of the coral displayed in the background of the image below. Remember, in real life this will be happening underwater with the benefit of being able to see the coral up close and in three dimensions. Furthermore, the Indo Pacific Coral Finder is much larger than presented here.

Step 1: Select a Key Group. In this case meandering ridges and valleys looks right.

Step 2: Choose a Look-alike page. To do this you need to have mastered those glossary terms in blue in the diagram above (they are explained in detail in the Indo Pacific Coral Finder). In this example you will need to know if the wall between the corallites is common (shared) or separate. The answer below is common. Because the corallites are over 10 mm across we will choose Look-alike page nine.

Step 3: You should now be able to see the answer by scanning the Look-alike page provided above. In the image below you can see the diver is pointing to the entry for Symphyllia.

Three simple steps: 1 - choose a Key Group from the cover page, 2 - answer a simple question and choose a Look-alike page and 3 - scan the Look-alike page to see the answer.

Every time a coral requires identification, the same effective process can be repeated: 1 - choose a Key Group from the cover page, 2 - answer a simple question and choose a Look-alike page and 3 - scan the Look-alike page to see the answer. Tests with early learners revealed that people really do just see the answer, and that is what the Indo Pacific Coral Finder does best. It allows the human eye and brain to do what it's good at - pattern recognition. For the novice, the Indo Pacific Coral Finder just works!

Another area where the Indo Pacific Coral Finder really excels is in the follow-up learning process. In the diagram above, note the concise description with key characters of the genus highlighted in bold. Yellow tip arrows also point to key features - like a field guide for birds. The best way to learn how to identify corals is to confirm these features with the coral in front of you - underwater or in an aquarium -  it will help you understand what is important to the identification the different coral genera.

By taking the little extra time to confirm these coral characters you will develop a mental search image and check-list that will make coral identification quick and reliable. So here's a tip adapted, with apologies, from Confucius: "Coral identification, undigested by thought, is labor lost; thought unassisted by character confirmation, is perilous". The best way to build up your coral identification skills is not to be sparing with character confirmation.

You can further deepen your under understanding of coral identification by using the Indo Pacific Coral Finder to connect you with the most relevant topside resources. When you identify a coral, or if you are not sure of your ID, make a note of the Corals of the world reference number for after dive learning. You can see it in the genus name Symphyllia in the image above. This will take you to the right volume and page number for that genus and often directly to the correct species itself.

If you do not have easy access to Corals of the world, the Coral Identification Capacity Building Program has developed a resource site specifically to support people using the Indo Pacific Coral Finder in the field. Just check out the Indo Pacific Coral Finder section of the Coral Hub website. There you will find tutorials on how to use the Indo Pacific Coral Finder and the Coral Hub together to confirm your ID’s. Once you know the routine you can just go to the A-Z page directly and look up the genus you think you saw. There you will find an expanded account of the characters of that genus with tips and tricks on how to separate it from commonly confused genera - all arranged by shape and form - as you find them in the Indo Pacific Coral Finder and in the field. The Coral Hub is also building up a learning centre of free audiovisual tutorials that is well worth returning to regularly as content is added.

Conclusions

A few final philosophical points about coming to grips with coral identification. Think back to the equation of confusion we defined in the beginning of this article: 800 species times all their growth forms overwhelmed early learners.

By using a visually driven, form-based logic the Indo Pacific Coral Finder makes it easy for you to often get the right answer. However, until you become familiar with corals and the language used to describe them, it is important to remain cautious about you identifications. When making an ID, carefully review the best candidates on each Look-alike page. Until your experience of reefs and corals matures we recommend keeping an open mind.

Finally, here are some tips for best results and rapid, quality learning:

- learn the terms in blue in the visual glossary;

- use text descriptions and tip arrows to confirm characters;

- use the TRUE SCALE box to confirm you have chosen a realistic candidate;

- note the top two candidates - not just the one you think it is on first glance - and review your thinking after the dive using the Coral Hub or Corals of the world;

- take underwater photos for post-dive comparisons using the Coral Hub or Corals of the world.

Pavona explanulata: the Indo Pacific Coral Finder will give you the correct genus name for reef building corals no matter what shape or form they take on.

Although designed as the world's first underwater coral ID tool, the Indo Pacific Coral Finder works equally well topside. It empowers  the diver or the aquarist to learn equally, whether at 30 meters on a barrier reef or looking at your marine tank from a lounge chair. When combined with the resources being developed at the Coral Hub, we finally have a learning loop worthy of the beauty and importance of corals and the decades of hard work by Professor Charlie Veron and other coral taxonomists.

The Indo Pacific Coral Finder captures 70 coral genera regardless of growth form and is available from www.byoguides.com - download this brochure for more details.

The Coral Hub is an output of the Coral Identification Capacity Building Program (CICBP) and is supported by the David and Lucille Packard Foundation. The learning resources at the Coral Hub are under active construction and the site will be officially launched later in 2010.

The CICBP also runs coral identification training workshops.  For more information about the CICBP you  can download our project bulletins here and here.

All images courtesy of Russell Kelley