Summary: MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES
Mar Ecol Prog Ser
Vol. 350: 109­116, 2007
doi: 10.3354/meps07135
Published November 22
INTRODUCTION
Identifying the processes responsible for variation in
the demographic rates of populations and how such
processes vary through time and space is crucial to our
understanding of population dynamics (Cappuccino &
Price 1995). For many marine organisms that exhibit a
complex life history, reproduction may be largely de-
coupled from the input of new individuals in local pop-
ulations despite evidence of some degree of self-
recruitment (e.g. Jones et al. 1999, Almany et al. 2007).
Thus, `settlement' as the immediate transition of pe-
lagic stage larvae to benthic habitats is analogous to
births in these relatively open populations and, coupled
with the effects of post-settlement processes after some
period of time, yields `recruitment' to a local population.

Source: Anderson, Todd - Department of Biology, San Diego State University
California at Santa Cruz, University of - Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Raimondi-Carr Lab

Collections: Biology and Medicine; Environmental Sciences and Ecology