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Quantifying larval retention and connectivity remains a major hurdle in the development of realistic spatially-explicit population models in marine systems. This lack of knowledge is primarily due to the difficulty of conducting mark-recapture studies in species that are characterized by the production of large numbers of small pelagic offspring that suffer high initial mortality rates. Advances in artificial and natural tagging methodologies have, however, significantly increased the ability of marine ecologists to track larvae throughout the pelagic larval phase and subsequent recruitment into benthic populations. Many of these empirical approaches are now possible with the development of DNA sequencing and mass spectrometric instrumentation in the last decade. The presence of artificial tags in recaptured individuals remains the only unequivocal method for marking marine larvae. However, the difficulties of tagging …