The role of habitat complexity in community development is mediated by resource availability.

ABSTRACT: Habitat complexity strongly affects the structure and dynamics of ecological communities, with increased complexity often leading to greater species diversity and abundance. However, habitat complexity changes as communities develop, and some species alter their environment to themselves provide habitat for other species. Most experimental studies manipulate basal substrate complexity, and while the importance of complexity likely changes during community development, few studies have examined the temporal dynamics of this variable. We used two experiments to quantify the importance of basal substrate complexity to sessile marine invertebrate community development through space and time. First, we compared effects of substrate complexity at 70 sites across ten estuaries. Sites differed in

SUBMITTER: Smith RS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4108414 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature