Dataset: Larval Dispersal Model: reef locations

These data are output from a Lagrangian bio-physical particle tracking model coupled with the flow fields from the MITgcm simulation for the Hawaiian Archipelago (175°E to 150°W and from 15°N to 35°N at a 0.04° resolution). In the model, larvae are moved at each timestep by advective displacement caused by water flow combined with a random displacement caused by diffusion. Current velocities used by the model consist of daily snapshots of u (east) and v (north) velocities obtained from a regional implementation the MITgcm model. Eddy diffusivity was set to 250 m2/sec, consistent with drifters in Hawaiian waters. We released 50 particles daily from May 2, 2009, until April 10, 2014, from 687 coral reef habitat pixels representing of all emergent land in the model domain, totaling just over 62 million released particles for each model run. We used a pelagic larval duration (PLD) of 45 days and for a particle to be considered “settled”, it had to be within a 5 km radius of the center of a habitat pixel on the last day of its PLD. See Polovina et al. 1999 for a description of the model, and Wren and Kobayashi 2016 for modifications done to the model.