TY - JOUR A1 - Färber, Claudia A1 - Titschack, Jürgen A1 - Schönberg, Christine H. L. A1 - Ehrig, Karsten A1 - Boos, Karin A1 - Baum, Daniel A1 - Illerhaus, Bernd A1 - Asgaard, Ulla A1 - Bromley, Richard G. A1 - Freiwald, André A1 - Wisshak, Max T1 - Long-term macrobioerosion in the Mediterranean Sea assessed by micro-computed tomography JF - Biogeosciences N2 - Biological erosion is a key process for the recycling of carbonate and the formation of calcareous sediments in the oceans. Experimental studies showed that bioerosion is subject to distinct temporal variability, but previous long-term studies were restricted to tropical waters. Here, we present results from a 14-year bioerosion experiment that was carried out along the rocky limestone coast of the island of Rhodes, Greece, in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, in order to monitor the pace at which bioerosion affects carbonate substrate and the sequence of colonisation by bioeroding organisms. Internal macrobioerosion was visualised and quantified by micro-computed tomography and computer-algorithm-based segmentation procedures. Analysis of internal macrobioerosion traces revealed a dominance of bioeroding sponges producing eight types of characteristic Entobia cavity networks, which were matched to five different clionaid sponges by spicule identification in extracted tissue. The morphology of the entobians strongly varied depending on the species of the producing sponge, its ontogenetic stage, available space, and competition by other bioeroders. An early community developed during the first 5 years of exposure with initially very low macrobioerosion rates and was followed by an intermediate stage when sponges formed large and more diverse entobians and bioerosion rates increased. After 14 years, 30 % of the block volumes were occupied by boring sponges, yielding maximum bioerosion rates of 900 g m^−2 yr^−1. A high spatial variability in macrobioerosion prohibited clear conclusions about the onset of macrobioerosion equilibrium conditions. This highlights the necessity of even longer experimental exposures and higher replication at various factor levels in order to better understand and quantify temporal patterns of macrobioerosion in marine carbonate environments. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-3461-2016 VL - 13 IS - 11 SP - 3461 EP - 3474 CY - http://www.biogeosciences.net/13/3461/2016/ ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Titschack, Jürgen A1 - Baum, Daniel A1 - Matsuyama, Kei A1 - Boos, Karin A1 - Färber, Claudia A1 - Kahl, Wolf-Achim A1 - Ehrig, Karsten A1 - Meinel, Dietmar A1 - Soriano, Carmen A1 - Stock, Stuart R. T1 - Ambient occlusion – a powerful algorithm to segment shell and skeletal intrapores in computed tomography data JF - Computers and Geosciences N2 - During the last decades, X-ray (micro-)computed tomography has gained increasing attention for the description of porous skeletal and shell structures of various organism groups. However, their quantitative analysis is often hampered by the difficulty to discriminate cavities and pores within the object from the surrounding region. Herein, we test the ambient occlusion (AO) algorithm and newly implemented optimisations for the segmentation of cavities (implemented in the software Amira). The segmentation accuracy is evaluated as a function of (i) changes in the ray length input variable, and (ii) the usage of AO (scalar) field and other AO-derived (scalar) fields. The results clearly indicate that the AO field itself outperforms all other AO-derived fields in terms of segmentation accuracy and robustness against variations in the ray length input variable. The newly implemented optimisations improved the AO field-based segmentation only slightly, while the segmentations based on the AO-derived fields improved considerably. Additionally, we evaluated the potential of the AO field and AO-derived fields for the separation and classification of cavities as well as skeletal structures by comparing them with commonly used distance-map-based segmentations. For this, we tested the zooid separation within a bryozoan colony, the stereom classification of an ophiuroid tooth, the separation of bioerosion traces within a marble block and the calice (central cavity)-pore separation within a dendrophyllid coral. The obtained results clearly indicate that the ideal input field depends on the three-dimensional morphology of the object of interest. The segmentations based on the AO-derived fields often provided cavity separations and skeleton classifications that were superior to or impossible to obtain with commonly used distance- map-based segmentations. The combined usage of various AO-derived fields by supervised or unsupervised segmentation algorithms might provide a promising target for future research to further improve the results for this kind of high-end data segmentation and classification. Furthermore, the application of the developed segmentation algorithm is not restricted to X-ray (micro-)computed tomographic data but may potentially be useful for the segmentation of 3D volume data from other sources. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2018.03.007 VL - 115 SP - 75 EP - 87 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Titschack, Jürgen A1 - Baum, Daniel A1 - Matsuyama, Kei A1 - Boos, Karin A1 - Färber, Claudia A1 - Kahl, Wolf-Achim A1 - Ehrig, Karsten A1 - Meinel, Dietmar A1 - Soriano, Carmen A1 - Stock, Stuart R. T1 - Ambient occlusion – a powerful algorithm to segment shell and skeletal intrapores in computed tomography data N2 - During the last decades, X-ray (micro-)computed tomography has gained increasing attention for the description of porous skeletal and shell structures of various organism groups. However, their quantitative analysis is often hampered by the difficulty to discriminate cavities and pores within the object from the surrounding region. Herein, we test the ambient occlusion (AO) algorithm and newly implemented optimisations for the segmentation of cavities (implemented in the software Amira). The segmentation accuracy is evaluated as a function of (i) changes in the ray length input variable, and (ii) the usage of AO (scalar) field and other AO-derived (scalar) fields. The results clearly indicate that the AO field itself outperforms all other AO-derived fields in terms of segmentation accuracy and robustness against variations in the ray length input variable. The newly implemented optimisations improved the AO field-based segmentation only slightly, while the segmentations based on the AO-derived fields improved considerably. Additionally, we evaluated the potential of the AO field and AO-derived fields for the separation and classification of cavities as well as skeletal structures by comparing them with commonly used distance-map-based segmentations. For this, we tested the zooid separation within a bryozoan colony, the stereom classification of an ophiuroid tooth, the separation of bioerosion traces within a marble block and the calice (central cavity)-pore separation within a dendrophyllid coral. The obtained results clearly indicate that the ideal input field depends on the three-dimensional morphology of the object of interest. The segmentations based on the AO-derived fields often provided cavity separations and skeleton classifications that were superior to or impossible to obtain with commonly used distance- map-based segmentations. The combined usage of various AO-derived fields by supervised or unsupervised segmentation algorithms might provide a promising target for future research to further improve the results for this kind of high-end data segmentation and classification. Furthermore, the application of the developed segmentation algorithm is not restricted to X-ray (micro-)computed tomographic data but may potentially be useful for the segmentation of 3D volume data from other sources. T3 - ZIB-Report - 18-14 Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-67982 SN - 1438-0064 ER -