Please cite this article as: Brundu, Gianni, Monleón, Lorena Vian, Vallainc, Dario, Carboni, Stefano, Effects of larval diet and metamorphosis cue on survival and growth of sea urchin post-larvae (Paracentrotus lividus; Lamarck, 1816), Aquaculture (2016Aquaculture ( ), doi: 10.1016Aquaculture ( /j.aquaculture.2016 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Although all dietary treatments resulted in a good survival at competence, significant difference in post-larval survival was observed between treatments, and indeed, only larvae fed Duna and CD survived to 180 days post settlement (DPS).In the second experiment, the settlement substrates consisted in a film of cultured Ulvella lens or a naturally developing biofilm of diatoms, and the employed rearing water was either natural seawater or seawater previously exposed to P. lividus adults. At 10 DPS, larger (p<0.05) post-larvae were observed in the natural biofilm treatment, whilst the presence of conspecifics significantly increased larval settlement in both substrates (p<0.01).These results indicate that it is important to consider the survival of post-larvae and juveniles to establish the efficiency of the dietary treatment on the hatchery production of P. lividus. Furthermore, it suggests that improved settlement protocols, such as the use of conspecifics, could contribute to increase hatchery outputs. Finally, it confirms the suitability of U. lens as settlement cue but also highlights that further research is required to establish its effectiveness for post-larvae first feeding.