An important factor for coral reef resilience is the connectivity between and within coral reefs. Larval-exporting or source reefs with diverse populations of healthy adult corals are essential for maintaining the genetic diversity and resilience of larval-importing or sink reefs.

Therefore, assessing the extent to which reefs are self-seeding or accumulate recruits from surrounding areas, as well as the direction of larval dispersal, will improve our ability to forecast how reef corals are likely to respond to environmental change.

Successful migrants leave a genetic signature of their movements and allow inference of connectivity using population genetic methods. AIMS scientists are using genetic methods to identify potential migrants that have settled on a reef over the past few generations.

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