Persistence and space preemption explain species-specific founder effects on the organization of marine sessile communities.

ABSTRACT: Community assembly may not follow predictable successional stages, with a large fraction of the species pool constituted by potential pioneering species and successful founders defined through lottery. In such systems, priority effects may be relevant in the determination of trajectories of developing communities and hence diversity and assemblage structure at later advanced states. In order to assess how different founder species may trigger variable community trajectories and structures, we conducted an experimental study using subtidal sessile assemblages as model. We manipulated the identity of functionally different founders and initial colony size (a proxy of the time lag before the arrival of later species), and followed trajectories. We did not observe any effects of colony size on

SUBMITTER: Vieira EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5869360 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature