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The pelagic larval period is probably the least understood life stage of reef fish, yet the processes of larval dispersal and settlement exert a strong influence on the persistence of reef fish populations. A thorough understanding of these processes is essential to determining whether distant populations are connected and how to adapt management plans to patterns in connectivity. Managers may erroneously assume that local populations are isolated when they are actually replenished by distant reefs beyond their jurisdiction. Researchers increasingly rely on numerical hydrodynamic models that simulate the spatiotemporal dispersal of larvae by ocean currents to elucidate these connections and guide marine spatial planners, yet relatively little work has been done to validate these models with empirical data. In this study, we tested a dispersal simulation model against in situ observations of young post-larval fish to …