Understanding ecological processes that shape contemporary and future communities facilitates knowledge-based environmental management. In marine ecosystems, one of the most important processes is the supply of new recruits into a population. Here, we investigated spatiotemporal variability in coral recruitment at 15 reefs throughout the Dampier Archipelago, north-western Australia between 2015 and 2017 and identified the best environmental predictors for coral recruitment patterns over this period. Large differences in recruitment were observed among years with the average density of recruits increasing by 375% from 0.017 recruits cm^-2 in 2015 to 0.059 recruits cm^-2 in 2017. Despite differences in recruitment among years, the rank order of coral recruit density among reefs remained similar among years, suggesting that spatial variation in recruitment within the Dampier Archipelago is partly deterministic and predictable. The density of coral recruits was best explained by percent cover of live corals at both local (within 5m) and meso-scales (within 15km), water turbidity and an oceanographic model that predicted larval dispersal. The highest density of coral recruits (∼0.13 recruits cm^-2 or 37 recruits per tile) occurred on reefs within sub-regions (15 km) with greater than 35% coral cover, low to moderate turbidity (KD490 < 0.2) and moderate to high modelled predictions of larval dispersal. Our results demonstrate that broad-scale larval dispersal models, when combined with local metrics of percent hard coral cover and water turbidity, can reliably predict the relative abundance of coral recruits over large geographical areas and thus can identify hotspots of recruit abundance and potential recovery following environmental disturbances; information that is essential for effective management of coral reefs.

了解塑造当代和未来社区的生态过程有助于基于知识的环境管理。在海洋生态系统中，最重要的过程之一是向人口提供新兵。在这里，我们调查了2015年至2017年之间澳大利亚西北部的丹皮尔群岛整个15个礁石中珊瑚招募的时空变化，并确定了这段时期内珊瑚招募模式的最佳环境预测因子。几年之间观察到招聘差异很大，新招聘人员的平均密度从2015年的0.017新人cm ^-2增加到0.059新人cm ^-2增加了375％。2017年。尽管各年之间的征聘有所不同，但各年间珊瑚礁之间的珊瑚征募密度等级顺序仍然相似，这表明丹皮尔群岛内部征募的空间变化在一定程度上是确定性和可预测的。珊瑚新兵的密度最好用局部（5m以内）和中尺度（15km以内）的活珊瑚覆盖率，水的浑浊度和预测幼虫扩散的海洋学模型来最好地解释。珊瑚新生的最高密度（约0.13个新生cm ^-2区域（15公里）内的珊瑚礁面积大于35％，浊度低至中度（KD490 <0.2），且幼虫扩散的中度至高度模拟预测发生在礁（15公里）内的珊瑚礁上（即每瓦37个新兵）。我们的研究结果表明，大规模幼体扩散模型与当地硬珊瑚覆盖率和水浊度的局部指标相结合，可以可靠地预测较大地理区域内珊瑚新兵的相对丰度，从而可以确定新兵丰度的热点和随后的潜在恢复环境干扰；有效管理珊瑚礁必不可少的信息。