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The influence of spawning periodicity on population connectivity

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Abstract

Many coral reef populations exist as discrete habitat patches linked through larval dispersal into a larger network. On these reefs, organisms spawn periodically and release propagules over a range of frequencies. Biophysical models of larval transport examine marine networks, yet particle release frequency needs careful consideration. We describe the time between sequential spawning events as the release interval and define any linkage of modeled larvae between two habitat sites as a connection. We investigate how changing the release interval affects the connectivity networks of three Caribbean species with low- to high-dispersal potential and swimming behavior. We find that spawning periodicity controls the number and persistence of network connections. Further, larval vertical movement behavior stabilizes the network, significantly increasing connections and connection persistence. This work demonstrates the impact of release interval on connectivity networks and underscores including larval behavior with realistic spawning periodicity in biophysical models of larval transport.

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Acknowledgments

Comments from Mark Butler, Joe Serafy, Michael Schmale, Lynne Fieber, Cheryl Harrison and an anonymous reviewer benefited the manuscript. Research support was by National Science Foundation (USA) OCE-0928423 to CBP.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ocean Sciences, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA

    Andrew S. Kough & Claire B. Paris

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  1. Andrew S. Kough
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  2. Claire B. Paris
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Correspondence to Andrew S. Kough.

Additional information

Communicated by Biology Editor Dr. Andrew Hoey

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Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 15 kb)

Supplementary material 2 (DOCX 14 kb)

Supplement Fig. 1

The vertical movement schemes used in the model. Schemes are shown for larval coral (a), damselfish (b), and lobster (c). Darker circles indicate depths with higher percentages of modeled larvae of each age and are only plotted when distributions change. Thus following any bubble along the X-axis, the depth-specific probabilities are the same with increasing age until a new bubble is encountered. The depth bins of the ocean circulation models are delineated with thick gray (HYCOM) and thin black (GoM-HYCOM) lines (EPS 5302 kb)

Supplement Fig. 2

Habitat map and Caribbean ecoregions. Coral reef habitats were represented by 8 km × 8 km polygons that were subdivided into 22 ecoregions shown in color. Here bubbles colored by ecoregion are placed at the centroid of each polygon where larvae were released (EPS 10659 kb)

Supplement Fig. 3

Visualization of the stratified random resampling approach. (a) The full duration of the experiment, with daily releases of larvae from January 1st, 2004 through December 31st 2008. When observed closer the black line is a series of dots (purple inset), each corresponding to a day in the simulation. For each release interval (i.e., daily through bimonthly), the full experimental duration was split into segments of length equal to the release interval, delineated with the vertical red lines for the case of a 30 day interval. A single day (blue vertical lines) was selected at random (Matlab rand function) from each segment. Each day has its own a transition matrix of connections from origin habitat to destination habitat computed. (b) Example of transition matrix computed for all daily releases using a saturated release magnitude (black denotes connections, gray indicates no connection). (c) The transition matrix computed from randomly selected days. The random selection process was repeated 100 times for each release interval to capture variation (EPS 26090 kb)

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Kough, A.S., Paris, C.B. The influence of spawning periodicity on population connectivity. Coral Reefs 34, 753–757 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-015-1311-1

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