{
  "abstract": "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’s 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.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Department of Computer Science, Julius-Maximilians University, Würzburg, Germany",
    "Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany"
  ],
  "article_type": "Research Article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 3,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Sarah Wolpold"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Christian R. Voolstra"
    },
    {
      "name": "Sebastian von Mammen"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4aebz1dy9tcex.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1371/journal.pone.0359316",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "4aebz1dy9tcex",
  "issns": [
    "1932-6203"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0359316",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2303|Coral and Marine Ecosystems Studies"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Developmental biology/Life cycles/Larvae"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Genetics/Genomics"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Marine biology/Coral reefs"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Marine biology/Corals"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Neuroscience/Cognitive science/Cognitive psychology/Perception/Sensory perception"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Neuroscience/Cognitive science/Cognitive psychology/Perception/Sensory perception/Sensory cues"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Neuroscience/Sensory perception"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Neuroscience/Sensory perception/Sensory cues"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Psychology/Cognitive psychology/Perception/Sensory perception"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Psychology/Cognitive psychology/Perception/Sensory perception/Sensory cues"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Earth sciences/Marine and aquatic sciences/Marine biology/Coral reefs"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Earth sciences/Marine and aquatic sciences/Marine biology/Corals"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Earth sciences/Marine and aquatic sciences/Reefs"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Earth sciences/Marine and aquatic sciences/Reefs/Coral reefs"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Physical sciences/Physics/Acoustics"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Social sciences/Psychology/Cognitive psychology/Perception/Sensory perception"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Social sciences/Psychology/Cognitive psychology/Perception/Sensory perception/Sensory cues"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7214388760",
  "pdf_url": "https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0359316&type=printable",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-25",
  "publisher": "Public Library of Science",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4aebz1dy9tcex.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:43Z",
      "native_id": "10.1371/journal.pone.0359316",
      "source": "plos",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0359316"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "plos:marine biology",
      "subfield": "ecology"
    },
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "plos:neuroscience",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "A neuroevolution-driven agent-based model of coral larvae settlement",
  "title_text": "A neuroevolution-driven agent-based model of coral larvae settlement",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:17:43Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4aebz1dy9tcex",
  "venue": "PLOS One",
  "versions": []
}