Coastal pollution limits pelagic larval dispersal

Marine connectivity: a new look at pelagic larval duration and genetic metrics of dispersal

Understanding connectivity remains a fundamental challenge to marine ecology due to technical limitations of tracking larval dispersal. Marine population genetic analyses are often used to make inferences about the scale of population connectivity. For species with a larval phase, pelagic larval duration (PLD) is assumed to influence the scale of connectivity. If PLD and genetic metrics are rel...

Successful Determination of Larval Dispersal Distances and Subsequent Settlement for Long-Lived Pelagic Larvae

Despite its importance, we still have a poor understanding of the level of connectivity between marine populations in most geographical locations. Taking advantage of the natural features of the southeast coast of New Zealand's North Island, we deployed a series of settlement stations and conducted plankton tows to capture recent settlers and planktonic larvae of the common intertidal gastropod...

Larval Transport and Dispersal in the Coastal Ocean and Consequences for Population Connectivity

Fine scale dispersal in Banggai Cardinalfish, Pterapogon kauderni, a coral reef species lacking a pelagic larval phase.

Dispersal in marine species results from complex interactions between biotic and abiotic factors. Importantly, the pelagic larval phase of most marine species adds a significant degree of complexity. Therefore, a growing body of work is focusing on those rare species that lack a pelagic larval phase (usually brooding species). For such species, large-scale gene flow has been shown to be very lo...

Larval dispersal and marine population connectivity.

Connectivity, or the exchange of individuals among marine populations, is a central topic in marine ecology. For most benthic marine species with complex life cycles, this exchange occurs primarily during the pelagic larval stage. The small size of larvae coupled with the vast and complex fluid environment they occupy hamper our ability to quantify dispersal and connectivity. Evidence from dire...