Fig. 2. Settlement of coral larvae originating from different depths and species.

Box plots showing the settlement percentages in the “no-choice” (a-e) and “choice” (f–h) experiments (For every treatment group, n = 5–6 replicates containing 30–40 larvae each; for detailed account see Methods and Supplementary Data 1). Settlement percentages of a the “deep-specialist” species Stylophora kuehlmanni; b shallow-originating larvae of the “depth-generalist” species Stylophora pistillata in 2018; c shallow-originating larvae of S. pistillata in 2019; d mesophotic-originating larvae of the “depth-generalist” species Rhytisma fulvum; e shallow-originating larvae of R. fulvum; f mesophotic-originating larvae of R. fulvum; g shallow-originating larvae of R. fulvum; and, h shallow-originating larvae of S. pistillata. Center lines of the box plots indicate the medians, boxes indicate the lower and upper quartiles, and whiskers indicate 1.5x interquartile range. Lines connect the medians of each treatment group to aid visualization and red asterisks indicate where significant differences were found between treatments.