The contribution of nearshore oceanography to temporal variation in larval dispersal

Patterns of population connectivity shape ecological and evolutionary phenomena from population persistence to local adaptation and can inform conservation strategy. Connectivity patterns emerge from the interaction of individual behavior with a complex and heterogeneous environment. Despite ample observation that dispersal patterns vary through time, the extent to which variation in the physical environment can explain emergent connectivity variation is not clear. Empirical studies of its contribution promise to illuminate a potential source of variability that shapes the dynamics of natural populations. We leveraged simultaneous direct dispersal observations and oceanographic transport simulations of the clownfish Amphiprion clarkii in the Camotes Sea, Philippines, to assess the contribution of oceanographic variability to emergent variation in connectivity. We found that time-varying oceanographic simulations on both annual and monsoonal timescales partly explained the observed dispersal patterns, suggesting that temporal variation in oceanographic transport shapes connectivity variation on these timescales. However, interannual variation in observed mean dispersal distance was nearly 10 times the expected variation from biophysical simulations, revealing that additional biotic and abiotic factors contribute to interannual connectivity variation. Simulated dispersal kernels also predicted a smaller scale of dispersal than the observations, supporting the hypothesis that undocumented abiotic factors and behaviors such as swimming and navigation enhance the probability of successful dispersal away from, as opposed to retention near, natal sites. Our findings highlight the potential for coincident observations and biophysical simulations to test dispersal hypotheses and the influence of temporal variability on metapopulation persistence, local adaptation, and other population processes.