Table of Contents

• Coverage
• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
  • BCO-DMO Processing Description
• Data Files
• Related Publications
• Related Datasets
• Parameters
• Project Information
• Funding

The third experiment ran from April to June of 2021. Each acetate sheet containing a single settler was glued directly to the cap of a 15 ml centrifuge tube for deployment in the field. The PVC poles were arranged in a transect that ran parallel to the shore (Figure 1c). There were four treatments: (1) alone (one focal colony); (2) far (a focal colony with nearest neighbour 1 m away); (3) near (a focal colony with nearest neighbour 15 cm away); and (4) both (a focal colony with one neighbour 15 cm away and another colony 1 m away).

Each treatment had four replicates, one in each of four spatial blocks (8 colonies × 4 spatial blocks = 32 total colonies). Within each block, the order of the treatment was randomized. Within a treatment, all colonies were unrelated (i.e., offspring of different mother colonies). Each focal colony was
placed on a transect line parallel to the shore. The distance between spatial blocks was 10 m. Neighbouring colonies were placed perpendicular from the transect line at their allocated distances, and the direction of those neighbours from the focal colony (either towards or away from the shore) was randomized for each replicate.

Prior to deployment, the surrounding seagrass was searched to ensure no B. neritina colonies were present. During deployment, the poles and surrounding benthos were monitored every 4 days and any non-experimental colonies were removed to minimize the contribution of sperm from non-experimental colonies. Experimental colonies remained in the field for 14 days, which is sufficient time to exchange sperm, fertilize eggs, for embryos to develop, and for larvae to brood. All 32 colonies were collected from the field after 14 days and transported back to the lab, where survival and the number of zooids per colony were measured. All colonies were then placed into individual glass bowls (one colony per bowl) with 250 ml of FSW and a roughened acetate sheet was floated on the surface for larvae to settle upon. Each day, the colonies were placed under a hanging LED light for approximately 8 hr to induce larval release. Every 4 days, the sheets were removed and replaced. To measure reproductive output, the number of settlers from each colony was counted every 4 days for 20 days (i.e., six occasions). No new offspring were released after 20 days. 

* added sampling latitude and longitude to data itself

NSF Award Abstract:
In marine systems, the production, dispersal, and recruitment of larvae are crucial processes that rebuild depleted adult stocks, facilitate changes in species geographic ranges, and modify the potential for adaptation under environmental stress. Traditionally, the tiny larvae of bottom-associated adults were thought to disperse far from their parents and from each other, making interactions among kin improbable. However, emerging evidence is challenging this view: larval dispersal does not always disrupt kin associations at settlement, and a large fraction of invertebrate diversity on the seafloor contains species in which most larvae disperse short distances. Limited dispersal increases the potential for interactions among kin, which has important consequences for individual fitness across many generations, and therefore the productivity of populations and the potential for adaptation. But when these consequences occur, and how exactly they manifest, remains largely unexplained. The key challenge now is to explain and predict when kin associations are likely to occur, and when they are likely to have positive or negative ecological consequences. Therefore, the key questions addressed by this research are: 1) how and when do kin associations arise and persist, and 2) what are the consequences of living with kin for survival, growth, and reproduction. This concept-driven research combines genomic approaches with experimental approaches in lab and field settings using an experimentally-tractable and representative invertebrate species. The project trains and mentors PhD students and a postdoctoral scholar at Florida State University (FSU). Field and laboratory activities are developed and incorporated into K–12 education programs and outreach opportunities at FSU.

The spatial proximity of relatives has fundamentally important consequences at multiple levels of biological organization. These consequences are likely to be particularly important in a large range of benthic marine systems, where competition, facilitation, and mating depend strongly on the proximity and number of neighbors. However, explaining and predicting the occurrence, magnitude, and direction of such effects remains challenging. Emerging evidence suggest that the ecological consequences of kin structure are unlikely to have a straight-forward relationship with dispersal potential. Therefore, it is crucial to discover new reasons for when kinship structure occurs and why it could have positive, negative, or neutral ecological consequences. This research aims to provide a new understanding of how dispersal and post-settlement processes generate spatial kin structure, how population density and relatedness influence post-settlement fitness, and how the relatedness of mating partners influences the number and fitness of their offspring (inbreeding and outbreeding). The research combines genomic approaches, experimental progeny arrays, and manipulative experiments in field and lab settings to test several hypotheses that are broadly applicable across species. By focusing on an experimentally tractable species to test broadly applicable hypotheses, the project achieves generality and a level of integration that has been difficult to achieve in previous work.