The relative importance of regional and local processes in determining community structure is a long-standing problem in community ecology. This is especially problematic in communities from highly connected habitats, which undergo two opposing …
Local communities can be structured by both local interactions (competition, predation, environmental variables, etc.) and by regional interactions (dispersal of individuals between habitats). Using data from a three-year study on 34 neighboring …
We studied the zooplankton community structure in a set of 33 interconnected shallow ponds that are restricted to a relatively small area (‘De Maten’, Genk, Belgium, 200 ha). As the ponds share the same water source, geology and history, and as the …