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Individual variation in marine larval-fish swimming speed and the emergence of dispersal kernels
Citation
Burgess, SC and Bode, M and Leis, JM and Mason, LB, Individual variation in marine larval-fish swimming speed and the emergence of dispersal kernels, Oikos, 2022, (3) Article e08896. ISSN 1600-0706 (2021) [Refereed Article]
Copyright Statement
© 2021 The Authors. Oikos published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Nordic Society Oikos. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) License, (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Dispersal emerges as a consequence of how an individual’s phenotype interacts with
the environment. Not all dispersing individuals have the same phenotype, and variation
among individuals can generate complex variation in the distribution of dispersal
distances and directions. While active locomotion performance is an obvious candidate
for a dispersal phenotype, its effects on dispersal are difficult to measure or predict,
especially in small organisms dispersing in wind or currents. Therefore, we analyzed
the effects of larval swimming on dispersal and settlement of coral-reef fish larvae using
a high-resolution biophysical model. The model is, to date, the only biophysical model
of marine larval dispersal that has been statistically validated against genetic parentage
estimates of larval origin and destination, and incorporates empirically-estimated
larval behaviors and their ontogeny. Larval swimming, in combination with depth,
orientation and navigation behaviors, actually reduced dispersal distances compared
to those of passive larvae. Swimming had no consistent effects on long distance dispersal,
but increased the spread of settlement locations. Swimming speed, in contrast,
did not consistently affect median dispersal distances, but faster swimming larvae had
greater mean and maximum dispersal distances than slower swimming larvae. Finally,
faster larval swimming speeds consistently increased the probability of settlement. Our
analysis shows how larval swimming differentially affects multiple properties of dispersal
kernels. In doing so, it indicates how selection could favor faster larval swimming
to increase settlement and local retention, which may actually result in longer dispersal
distances as a by-product of larvae trying to locate habitat rather than to disperse
greater distances.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | larval biology, dispersal, population connectivity, dispersal kernels, fisheries, conservation |
| Research Division: | Biological Sciences |
| Research Group: | Ecology |
| Research Field: | Behavioural ecology |
| Objective Division: | Environmental Management |
| Objective Group: | Coastal and estuarine systems and management |
| Objective Field: | Coastal or estuarine biodiversity |
| UTAS Author: | Leis, JM (Dr Jeff Leis) |
| ID Code: | 148190 |
| Year Published: | 2021 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 5 |
| Deposited By: | Ecology and Biodiversity |
| Deposited On: | 2021-12-09 |
| Last Modified: | 2022-04-21 |
| Downloads: | 7 View Download Statistics |
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