Sexual reproduction in aquaculture (as well as in nature) includes six basic steps that need to be accomplished
to produce coral recruits: (i) gametogenesis, (ii) spawning,
(iii) fertilization, (iv) planktonic larval stage, (v) settlement and (vi) post-settlement development (Fig. 4). Every
stage can function as a bottleneck; hence, as a result, the
total production of coral recruits may be drastically
reduced or completely destroyed if one step fails. To maximize the production, all steps need to be optimized, which
often requires an adaptation of the methods due to species-specific differences (i.e. brooder vs. broadcast spawner, settlement preferences; see Petersen et al. 2007a;
Petersen 2008).
Figure 3 Reproduction cycle of broadcast