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Monday, May 26, 2008 - 10:15 AM
11
Streams and the metacommunity concept: New jargon or new insight?
Russell Rader, Biology Department, Brigham Young University, 173 WIDB, Provo, UT 84602
Metacommunities are a network of local communities connected by the dispersal of potentially interacting species. The metacommunity concept is derived from metapopulation ideas which have generated valuable theoretical insight and conservation application. The metacommunity concept has not generated similar insight concerning the assembly and conservation of stream communities, perhaps because it is a younger more complex idea. I will discuss how metacommunity perspectives (patch dynamics, species sorting, source-sink/mass effects, and neutrality) relate to established theories of community composition in streams (e.g., patch dynamics and the filters hypothesis) with an emphasis on disturbance effects and dispersal across multiple scales. The dynamics of metacommunities should emerge at intermediate spatial scales between reaches and stream segments because metacommunities by definition, have intermediate rates of dispersal between local communities. I will also discuss ways to test the importance of the different metacommunity perspectives. Finally, a functional approach may be best because of the complex interaction between disturbances and the dispersal of individual species.
Web Page: metacommunities, dispersal, scale
See more of Community Ecology I
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See more of The Nabs 56th Annual Meeting (25-28 May, 2008)
See more of Contributed Sessions
See more of The Nabs 56th Annual Meeting (25-28 May, 2008)