Abstract
Making links between ecological processes and the scales at which they operate is an enduring challenge of community ecology. Our understanding of ecological communities cannot advance if we do not distinguish larger scale processes from smaller ones. Variability at small spatial scales can be important because it carries information about biological interactions, which cannot be explained by environmental heterogeneity alone. Marine fouling communities are shaped by both the supply of larvae and competition for resources among colonizers—these two processes operate on distinctly different scales. Here, we demonstrate how fouling community structure varies with spatial scale in a temperate Australian environment, and we identify the spatial scale that captures the most variability. Community structure was quantified with both univariate (species richness and diversity) and multivariate (similarity in species composition) indices. Variation in community structure was unevenly distributed between the spatial scales that we examined. While variation in community structure within patch was usually greater than among patch, variation among patch was always significant. Opportunistic taxa that rely heavily on rapid colonization of free space spread more evenly among patches during early succession. In contrast, taxa that are strong adult competitors but slow colonizers spread more evenly among patches only during late succession. Our findings show significant patchiness can develop in a habitat showing no systematic environmental spatial variation, and this patchiness can be mediated through different biological factors at different spatial scales.
Highlights
A major goal in ecological research is to identify patterns in biodiversity and understand how these patterns are generated
We found that patch contributed significantly to this plot-to-plot pattern
For the distribution of important functional groups, the importance of patch effects differed across different stages of community assembly; patch effects were always a significant component contributing to the variation of the overall community
Summary
A major goal in ecological research is to identify patterns in biodiversity and understand how these patterns are generated. In several early theoretical explorations, MacArthur and co-workers highlighted the importance of trait–environment relations at the level of local scale (MacArthur & Levins, 1967); the importance was dismissed when studying Benthic fouling communities are characterized by life histories that are similar to terrestrial plants: sessile adults producing dispersive propagules In these fouling communities, high levels of variation can often be found on small spatial scales (e.g., from cm to tens of m, Farnsworth & Ellison, 1996; Underwood & Chapman, 1996). As most species of marine fouling communities have a relatively short larval period (in contrast to the seeds of many terrestrial plants), the spatial structure of these communities is thought to be strongly regulated by early colonization and by small-scale environmental variables (Caley et al, 1996)
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