Biogeography, Climate and the Role of Direct Positive Interactions in Rocky Shoreline Communities

与竞争和消费过程相比，海洋社区中直接的积极互动所发挥的作用被忽视了。虽然直接的积极相互作用被广泛认为是发生，他们很少受到社区生态学家的实验关注，并在很大程度上被忽视的一般社区组织力量。本研究明确探讨栖息地改善积极的相互作用，在岩石潮间带社区的组织力量的作用，特别是将探讨地理和气候的作用，在规定这些相互作用的重要性。具体而言，该项目（1）测试的假设，即栖息地改善，种内群体的好处，在设置上潮间带的主要空间持有者的重要性随着纬度的降低而增加，更重要的是在海湾和河口比在开放的海岸栖息地，由于太阳辐射强度的可预测的变化。（2）检验了这样一个假设，即通过限制对相关生物的物理压力，高潮间带藻类冠层在构建高潮间带群落中起着关键作用，而且，像种内群体利益一样，这些影响的重要性也强烈地受到地理和气候的影响。通过集中在预测性和积极的相互作用，否则研究新英格兰岩石潮间带系统的后果，这项工作将开始纳入我们的岩石海岸线和其他海洋和陆地系统的理解积极的相互作用。直接量化气候如何影响自然群落的过程和模式的研究也可能是探索全球气候变化对社区潜在影响的最佳工具之一。

In comparison to competitive and consumer processes, the role played by direct positive interactions in marine communities has been overlooked. While direct positive interactions are widely recognized to occur, they have received little experimental attention by community ecologists and have been largely ignored as general community organizing forces. This study explicitly examines the role of habitat ameliorating positive interactions as organizing forces in rocky intertidal communities and specifically will explore the role of biogeography and climate in dictating the importance of these interactions. Specifically, this project (1) tests the hypothesis that the importance of habitat ameliorating, intraspecific group benefits in setting the upper intertidal limits of primary spaceholders increases with decreasing latitude and is more important in bays and estuaries than in open coast habitats due to predictable variation in the intensity of solar radiation. And (2) tests the hypothesis that, by limiting physical stresses on associated organisms, high intertidal algal canopies play a keystone role in structuring high intertidal communities, and that, like intraspecific group benefits, the importance of these effects are also strongly mediated by biogeography and climate. By focusing on the predictability and consequences of positive interactions in the otherwise well studied New England rocky intertidal system, this work will begin to incorporate positive interactions into our understanding of rocky shorelines and other marine and terrestrial systems. Studies suxh as this one that directly quantify how climate can influence process and pattern in natural assemblages may also be one of the best tools available for exploring the potential consequences of global climate change on communities.