Asymmetric connectivity of spawning aggregations of a commercially important marine fish using a multidisciplinary approach.

Understanding patterns of larval dispersal is key in determining whether no-take marine reserves are self-sustaining, what will be protected inside reserves and where the benefits of reserves will be observed. We followed a multidisciplinary approach that merged detailed descriptions of fishing zones and spawning time at 17 sites distributed in the Midriff Island region of the Gulf of California with a biophysical oceanographic model that simulated larval transport at Pelagic Larval Duration (PLD) 14, 21 and 28 days for the most common and targeted predatory reef fish, (leopard grouper Mycteroperca rosacea). We tested the hypothesis that source-sink larval metapopulation dynamics describing the direction and frequency of larval dispersal according to an oceanographic model can help to explain empirical genetic data.