508 
Fishery Bulletin 107(4) 
was variable. Although drifter vials cannot provide 
a simulation of larval behavior and only provide be- 
ginning and end points in the dispersal process, this 
study is significant in showing that passive propagules 
originating in the TSER can in fact be transported to 
suitable nearshore habitats in a time period similar to 
average PLDs for reef fishes. This lends support to the 
idea that genetic homogeneity among mutton snapper 
populations across the Caribbean does not preclude a 
substantial contribution of the TSER as a source popu- 
lation for mutton snapper to the Florida Keys and the 
southeast Florida shelf. 
In cases where genetic homogeneity exists in the 
absence of substantial recruitment from distant popu- 
lations it will be critical to employ alternative meth- 
ods to quantify levels and patterns of demographic 
connectivity among locations. The transgenerational 
marking of embryonic otoliths with barium stable iso- 
topes is one emerging technique that could directly 
assign marked larvae and newly recruited juveniles to 
an adult spawning source (Thorrold et al., 2006). Reef 
fishes that form large spawning aggregations, such as 
snapper and grouper, are particularly suited for this 
application because numerous adults can be marked 
at once. The barium isotopic signature has been shown 
to be effectively transmitted to embryonic otoliths in 
both benthic- and pelagic-spawning fishes (Thorrold 
et al., 2006). Larvae or juveniles sampled from down- 
stream locations that exhibit this signature in the core 
of their otoliths can be unequivocally traced back to the 
spawning source. Although this approach is costly, the 
information it provides could substantially increase our 
understanding of demographic connectivity and could 
be used to gauge the contribution of larval sources. 
Acknowledgments 
The authors gratefully acknowledge the many people 
who collected samples and made this study possible: W. 
Heyman and N. Requena of The Nature Conservancy, 
Belize; E. Ault and A. Poholek of the Florida Fish and 
Wildlife Commission Tequesta Laboratory; K. Brennan 
and P. Kirwin of the NMFS Beaufort Laboratory. Fund- 
ing for this research study was provided by the NOAA 
Coral Reef Conservation Program. R. Munoz, NMFS 
Beaufort Laboratory, T. Schultz and J. Carlson, Duke 
University Marine Laboratory, and three anonymous 
reviewers who provided valuable reviews that greatly 
improved the manuscript. 
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