. 2021 Jun 8;11:12050. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-91509-4

Table 3.

Summary table showing properties of different habitat metrics that are recommended for characterization of coral-reef habitats.

3D habitat metric	Resolution	Statistic	Suited to capture	Supporting references	Original references
Surface complexity	1 cm	N/A	Overall changes in 3D surface area relative to 2D planar area	²², present study	²³
Slope	1 cm	Mean	Overall changes in vertical relief (including loss of tabulate and mounding corals)	^22,29, present study	^24,25
Vector ruggedness measurement (VRM)	1 or 2 cm	Mean	Structural complexity of branching, encrusting corals, and rubble	^28,29, present study	^25,26
	4 cm	Mean	Structural complexity of mounding and tabulate corals	^28,29, present study
Profile and planform curvature	1 cm	Range/Variance	Holes and ledges, including the "drops" created by tabulate corals	²⁹, present study	²⁷
Fractal dimension	1–8 or 16 cm for corals, but range is case dependent	N/A	Overall structural complexity of corals and crustose coralline algae	^22,28,29	^34,35

Listed are the recommended habitat metrics and resolutions, statistic (n/a means that there is only a single value produced per DEM), suitable benthic features to capture, references that support this recommendation, and original references of each metric.