Historically, marine populations were considered to be interconnected across large geographic regions due to the lack of apparent physical barriers to dispersal, coupled with a potentially widely dispersive pelagic larval stage. Recent studies, however, are providing increasing evidence of small-scale genetic segregation of populations across habitats and depths, separated in some cases by only a few dozen meters. Here, we performed a series of ex-situ and in-situ experiments using coral larvae of three brooding species from contrasting shallow- and deep-water reef habitats, and show that their settlement success, habitat choices, and subsequent survival are substantially influenced by parental effects in a habitat-dependent manner. Generally, larvae originating from deep-water corals, which experience less variable conditions, expressed more specific responses than shallow-water larvae, with a higher settlement success in simulated parental-habitat conditions. Survival of juvenile corals experimentally translocated to the sea was significantly lower when not at parental depths. We conclude that local adaptations and parental effects alongside larval selectivity and phenotype-environment mismatches combine to create invisible semipermeable barriers to coral dispersal and connectivity, leading to habitat-dependent population segregation.

从历史上看，由于缺乏明显的扩散物理障碍，加上潜在的广泛分散的远洋幼体阶段，海洋种群被认为是跨越大地理区域的相互联系。然而，最近的研究提供了越来越多的证据，证明不同栖息地和深度的种群之间存在小规模的遗传隔离，在某些情况下仅相隔几十米。在这里，我们使用来自对比鲜明的浅水和深水珊瑚礁栖息地的三种育雏物种的珊瑚幼虫进行了一系列异地和原地实验，并表明它们的定居成功、栖息地选择和随后的生存在很大程度上受到以下因素的影响：以栖息地依赖方式的亲代效应。一般来说，来自深水珊瑚的幼虫，它们经历的变化较少，表达比浅水幼虫更具体的反应，在模拟的亲本栖息地条件下定居成功率更高。当不在亲代深度时，通过实验转移到海中的幼年珊瑚的存活率显着降低。我们得出结论，局部适应性和亲本效应以及幼虫选择性和表型-环境不匹配相结合，为珊瑚的传播和连通性创造了无形的半透性障碍，导致依赖栖息地的种群隔离。