Community assembly time and the relationship between local and regional species richness Export

@article{citeulike:2317119, abstract = {Many previous studies have assumed that a linear relationship between local and regional species richness indicates that communities are limited by regional processes, while a saturating relationship suggests that species interactions restrict local richness. We show theoretically that the relationship between local and regional richness changes in a consistent fashion with assembly time in interacting communities. Communities show saturation in their early assembly stages because only a subset of the regional pool may colonize a locality. At intermediate assembly times, communities will appear unsaturated until significant competitive exclusion occurs. Finally, when communities reach equilibrium, we found saturation as a result of resource competition resulting in the dominance of a limited number of species. We show that habitat size and species fecundity are important in determining the time needed for the community to reach equilibrium and thus affect the relationship between local and regional species richness. Our results suggest the number of coexisting species is a function of local and regional processes whose relative influences might vary over time and that research using the relationship between local and regional species richness to infer mechanisms limiting species richness must have knowledge of the assembly time of the community.}, author = {Mouquet, N. and Munguia, P. and Kneitel, J. M. and Miller, T. E.}, citeulike-article-id = {2317119}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1034/j.1600-0706.2003.12772.x}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1034/j.1600-0706.2003.12772.x}, doi = {10.1034/j.1600-0706.2003.12772.x}, journal = {Oikos}, keywords = {assembly, community, local, regional, richness, species}, number = {3}, pages = {618--626}, posted-at = {2009-01-05 03:10:09}, priority = {2}, title = {Community assembly time and the relationship between local and regional species richness}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1034/j.1600-0706.2003.12772.x}, volume = {103}, year = {2003} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2317119 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2317119 N2 - Many previous studies have assumed that a linear relationship between local and regional species richness indicates that communities are limited by regional processes, while a saturating relationship suggests that species interactions restrict local richness. We show theoretically that the relationship between local and regional richness changes in a consistent fashion with assembly time in interacting communities. Communities show saturation in their early assembly stages because only a subset of the regional pool may colonize a locality. At intermediate assembly times, communities will appear unsaturated until significant competitive exclusion occurs. Finally, when communities reach equilibrium, we found saturation as a result of resource competition resulting in the dominance of a limited number of species. We show that habitat size and species fecundity are important in determining the time needed for the community to reach equilibrium and thus affect the relationship between local and regional species richness. Our results suggest the number of coexisting species is a function of local and regional processes whose relative influences might vary over time and that research using the relationship between local and regional species richness to infer mechanisms limiting species richness must have knowledge of the assembly time of the community. IS - 3 JF - Oikos EP - 626 TI - Community assembly time and the relationship between local and regional species richness VL - 103 SP - 618 KW - assembly KW - community KW - local KW - regional KW - richness KW - species AU - Mouquet, N AU - Munguia, P AU - Kneitel, JM AU - Miller, TE PY - 2003/// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1034/j.1600-0706.2003.12772.x ER -