{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]],"date-time":"2026-09-25T18:58:35Z","timestamp":1790362715267,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":35,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]],"date-time":"2026-09-25T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1790294400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS One"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Coral reefs face significant threats due to climate change and human activities, which require innovative approaches to study and protect these ecosystems. Successful settlement is the bottleneck linking a reef\u2019s free-swimming larvae to the benthic community, ultimately determining the next generation of corals and the long-term resilience of the entire ecosystem. This work introduces an agent-based model (ABM) driven by neuroevolution (NE) to simulate coral larval settlement behavior under various environmental conditions. Inspired by biological processes, the model combines sensory input with a neural network (NN) to guide larval actions, optimizing settlement success through evolutionary algorithms. The model replicates three experimental setups from previous studies, validating it against key metrics such as settlement success, vertical distribution, and orientation to environmental cues. The evolved controllers capture the characteristic cue responses of each experiment: crustose coralline algae (CCA)-driven settlement, the bimodal vertical distribution, and orientation towards reef sound, while also exposing the limits of the simplified environment, as its reduced hydrodynamics. Sensitivity analyses further indicate that these behaviors are driven by different mechanisms across the experiments, illustrating how the model yields interpretable, testable outcomes. This approach provides a basis for integrating adaptive behaviors into coral larval simulations, and future work will focus on refining the model to enhance biological realism and scalability.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0359316","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]],"date-time":"2026-09-25T17:58:28Z","timestamp":1790359108000},"page":"e0359316","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["A neuroevolution-driven agent-based model of coral larvae settlement"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"21","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0229-5514","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Sarah","family":"Wolpold","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Julius-Maximilians University","place":["W\u00fcrzburg, Germany"],"department":["Department of Computer Science"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4555-3795","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Christian R.","family":"Voolstra","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Konstanz","place":["Konstanz, Germany"],"department":["Department of Biology"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sebastian","family":"von Mammen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Julius-Maximilians University","place":["W\u00fcrzburg, Germany"],"department":["Department of Computer Science"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]]},"reference":[{"key":"pone.0359316.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"42","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jembe.2011.07.025","article-title":"Coral larvae: From gametes to recruits","volume":"408","author":"DF Gleason","year":"2011","journal-title":"J Exp Mar Biol Ecol"},{"issue":"6","key":"pone.0359316.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"557","DOI":"10.1038\/sj.hdy.6800459","article-title":"The role of sexual and asexual reproduction in structuring high latitude populations of the reef coral Pocillopora damicornis","volume":"92","author":"KJ Miller","year":"2004","journal-title":"Heredity (Edinb)"},{"issue":"98","key":"pone.0359316.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"20140209","DOI":"10.1098\/rsif.2014.0209","article-title":"Oceanographic and behavioural assumptions in models of the fate of coral and coral reef fish larvae","volume":"11","author":"E Wolanski","year":"2014","journal-title":"J R Soc Interface"},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0359316.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"431","DOI":"10.1007\/s00442-013-2635-6","article-title":"Effects of delayed settlement on post-settlement growth and survival of scleractinian coral larvae","volume":"173","author":"EM Graham","year":"2013","journal-title":"Oecologia"},{"issue":"7","key":"pone.0359316.ref005","article-title":"Larval connectivity patterns of the North Indo-West Pacific coral reefs","volume":"14","author":"PR Pata","year":"2019","journal-title":"PLoS One"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0359316.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1002\/ecs2.3015","article-title":"Larval dispersal in a changing ocean with an emphasis on upwelling regions","volume":"11","author":"SM Bashevkin","year":"2020","journal-title":"Ecosphere"},{"issue":"7656","key":"pone.0359316.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"82","DOI":"10.1038\/nature22901","article-title":"Coral reefs in the Anthropocene","volume":"546","author":"TP Hughes","year":"2017","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"pone.0359316.ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.7717\/peerj.2597","article-title":"Ecological solutions to reef degradation: optimizing coral reef restoration in the Caribbean and Western Atlantic","volume":"4","author":"D Lirman","year":"2016","journal-title":"PeerJ"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0359316.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0226631","article-title":"Coral restoration - A systematic review of current methods, successes, failures and future directions","volume":"15","author":"L Bostr\u00f6m-Einarsson","year":"2020","journal-title":"PLoS One"},{"issue":"5","key":"pone.0359316.ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"981","DOI":"10.1111\/rec.12977","article-title":"Motivations, success, and cost of coral reef restoration","volume":"27","author":"E Bayraktarov","year":"2019","journal-title":"Restoration Ecol"},{"key":"pone.0359316.ref011","first-page":"2024","article-title":"Going with the flow: leveraging reef-scale hydrodynamics for upscaling larval-based restoration","volume":"2024","author":"M Gouezo","year":"2024","journal-title":"bioRxiv"},{"key":"pone.0359316.ref012","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Swearer SE, Treml EA, Shima JS. 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