species sorting

Environmental and spatial controls of biotic assemblages in a discrete semi-terrestrial habitat: comparison of organisms with different dispersal abilities sampled in the same plots

Aim The development of metacommunity theory inspired a series of studies exploring the importance of environmental and spatial effects on the composition of biotic assemblages. However, the comparison of different groups of organisms has been …

Contrasts between habitat generalists and specialists: an empirical extension to the basic metacommunity framework

Emergence of the metacommunity concept has made a substantial contribution to better understanding of the community composition and dynamics in a regional context. However, long-term field data for testing of available metacommunity models are still …

The relative importance of dispersal and local processes in structuring phytoplankton communities in a set of highly interconnected ponds

1. The recognition that both local and regional processes act together in shaping local communities makes determining their relative roles in natural communities central to understanding patterns in community structure. 2. We investigated the …

Integrating environmental and spatial processes in ecological community dynamics

The processes controlling the abundances of species across multiple sites form the cornerstone of modern ecology. In these metacommunities, the relative importance of local environmental and regional spatial processes is currently hotly debated, …