Spatial localization of internally brooded larvae in the cold-water coral Caryophyllia huinayensis

DOI

Three-dimensional (3D) reconstructions of parent polyps, sampled between 2019-07-25 and 2019-07-27 in Comau Fjord, Chile, were developed from digitized histological slides to analyze the spatial distribution of internally brooded larvae. To ensure a representative sample size of larvae, nine polyps collected during the austral winter were examined, coinciding with the peak larval release rates recorded for this species.Two-dimensional (2D) images of the histological sections were sequentially aligned and rendered in Blender (3D modeling software) to reconstruct the internal polyp architecture. The spatial coordinates (x, y, and z) of each larva were determined by marking their centroids within the reconstructed volume. This was achieved by systematically progressing through the aligned image stack and marking each color-coded larval cross-section. The external morphology of the polyp was defined by tracing cross-sectional outlines using Bézier curves, which were subsequently converted into a 3D mesh using the Curves to Mesh add-on (Kingsnorth). The resulting 3D models are available for download here or can be inspected via the Sketchfab (https://skfb.ly/pFSqp) web interface.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.993504
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.993504
Provenance
Creator Beggel, Patrik; Heran, Thomas ORCID logo; Laudien, Jürgen ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2026
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 28 data points
Discipline History; Humanities
Spatial Coverage (-72.599W, -42.391S, -72.457E, -42.162N); Comau Fjord, Patagonia, Chile
Temporal Coverage Begin 2019-07-25T00:00:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2019-07-27T00:00:00Z