2D Coral Larvae Dispersal Map

This plan-view canvas model tracks a cohort of coral larvae released from a source reef as they drift through a 2D current field built from a steerable mean flow plus two mesoscale eddies, with turbulent diffusion added as an independent random walk each frame. Larvae pass through a pre-competency phase before they can settle, then have a finite competency window and background mortality rate during which they may stochastically settle onto one of several outlying reef patches, be swept out of the domain, or run out of energy and die. A live connectivity readout tallies exactly which reef each settled larva reached — the source-to-sink matrix that real reef-connectivity research uses to plan marine protected area networks.