The colonisation of exotic species does not have to trigger faunal homogenisation: lessons from the assembly patterns of arthropods on oceanic islands.

ABSTRACT: Human-caused disturbances can lead to the extinction of indigenous (endemic and native) species, while facilitating and increasing the colonisation of exotic species; this increase can, in turn, promote the similarity of species compositions between sites if human-disturbed sites are consistently invaded by a regionally species-poor pool of exotic species. In this study, we analysed the extent to which epigean arthropod assemblages of four islands of the Azorean archipelago are characterised by nestedness according to a habitat-altered gradient. The degree of nestedness represents the extent to which less ubiquitous species occur in subsets of sites occupied by the more widespread species, resulting in an ordered loss/gain of species across environmental or ecological gradients. A predicta

SUBMITTER: Florencio M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4449220 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature