How Do Communities Assemble? The Influence of Local Conditions and Regional Processes on Community Composition

社区是如何聚集的？当地条件和区域进程对群落组成的影响。相似的社区在相似的地点发展吗？如果当地条件，如初级生产力或干扰率，在群落聚集中是最重要的，那么我们预计，在具有类似当地条件的地点，群落组成将趋同于该环境所青睐的单一群落状态。或者，如果区域过程，比如物种在一个元群落中殖民一个地方的速度，以及它们这样做的顺序，更强烈地推动了群落的聚集，那么我们可以预期，在相似地点发展的群落将向多个群落状态之一分化。在这个项目中，PI将进行一项长期实验，旨在辨别当地条件和区域进程对元群落集合的影响。这项研究将提供一些迄今为止最全面的证据，检验地方和区域尺度过程在决定不同环境下社区结构方面的相对作用。此外，作为本项目重点的对群落聚集的基本理解将直接关系到恢复退化生态系统的概念基础。

DEB - 0194634 ChaseHow do communities assemble? The influence of local conditions and regional processes on community composition.Do similar communities develop at similar sites? If local conditions, such as the primary productivity or disturbance rate, are of primary importance in community assembly, then we expect that community composition at sites with similar local conditions would converge towards the single community state favored in that environment. Alternatively, if regional processes, such as the rate at which species colonize a locality within a meta-community, and the order in which they do so, more strongly drive community assembly, then we might expect that communities developing at similar sites would diverge towards one of multiple community states. In this project, the PI will perform a long term experiment designed to discern between the influences of local conditions and regional processes on meta-community assembly. This research will provide some of the most comprehensive evidence to date examining the relative roles of local and regional scale processes in determining community structure in different environments. Further, the basic understanding of community assembly that is the focus of this project will directly relate to the conceptual foundation for the restoration of degraded ecosystems.