1. A primary objective of marine ecology is to enhance our understanding of the drivers of marine fish population dynamics. These dynamics are readily understood using the framework of metapopulation ecology: for a population to persist, it must be able to self-replicate or be connected to other populations. The drivers of these criteria include rates of reproduction and dispersal, which together determine the rates of recruitment. Recruitment is, however, highly variable, and we do not know widespread patterns and causes of this variation in marine fishes. 2. Reproductive success is notoriously difficult to measure in the wild, and even more so for coral reef fishes that reside underwater. As a proxy, mating success can be predicted from more easily measured determinants, such as variation in individual traits and habitat characteristics. 3. Dispersal has, until recently, been the ‘black box’ of marine ecology, but it can be helpfully described using dispersal kernels. Currently, only five marine fishes have had their dispersal kernel empirically estimated using parentage analyses. From these studies, we see that there are at least four orders of magnitude variation in individual dispersal distances within a species. 4. Many coral reef fishes live in close association with macroinvertebrate hosts, which provide nesting sites and protection from predators. The fish themselves exhibit parental care over clutches of eggs, which hatch into dispersive larvae and recruit back into a suitable host. This life-history suggests habitat quality variation at the scale of the individual host may play a large role in determining relative reproductive and dispersal rates. To explore the role of variation in habitat quality on marine fish reproductive ecology and dispersal ecology, I perform the following three studies: 5. First, I investigate the determinants of variation in mating success in the sponge-dwelling goby, Elacatinus lori. While this fish was the first to have its larval dispersal kernel empirically measured, there were outstanding questions about its reproductive ecology. I describe the characteristics of its breeding habitat, its genetic mating system, and the correlates of male mating success. I show that sponges occupied by breeding males tend to be larger than other sponges, males exhibit a polygynous mating system, and male size, but not sponge size, is positively related to multiple metrics of male mating success. 6. Second, I test for the possibility of plasticity in larval dispersal phenotypes in response to parental habitat quality variation in the orange anemonefish, Amphiprion percula. To pursue this hypothesis, we must first establish that the conditions for parental effects to evolve are met in this system. An initial condition is whether parents can predict the habitat quality that their offspring will encounter. I test for spatial predictability of habitat quality by describing the strength and scale of spatial autocorrelation of three habitat quality indicators: anemone size, female size, and clutch size. I show that all three habitat quality indicators are positively correlated at the scale of an individual patch reef, suggesting that selection might favor parents that increase allocation to offspring that stay within the natal reef if they are in good habitat and increase allocation to offspring that travel farther and leave if they are in poor habitat. Results from this study motivate further investigation of dispersal plasticity in A. percula. 7. Third, I experimentally test the hypothesis that parents can adjust the dispersal-related traits of their offspring in response to changes in habitat quality using a lab population of Amphiprion percula. I describe changes in body size and swimming ability of offspring in response to parental habitat quality by manipulating the parents’ food rations. I find plasticity of larval body size, with parents producing larger offspring when on a low food ration than when on a high food ration. Results from this study motivate future studies to investigate plasticity of larval dispersal distances in the field. 8. In sum, I investigate how variation in habitat quality influences reproductive success, how variation in habitat quality is spatially predictable, and how variation in habitat quality influences dispersal-related traits in two important model systems in marine metapopulation ecology. The work advances our understanding of the role of habitat in determining these vital rates and population dynamics with implications for conservation and fisheries management.