Consequences of varying regional heterogeneity in source-sink metacommunities

Mouquet, N., Miller, T. E., Daufresne, T. and Kneitel, J. M. 2006. Consequencesof varying regional heterogeneity in source sink metacommunities. Oikos 113:481 488.Although the influence of dispersal on coexistence mechanisms in metacommunitieshas received great emphasis, few studies have addressed how such influence is affectedvarying regional heterogeneity. We present a mechanistic model of resourcecompetition in a metacommunity based on classical models of plant competition forlimiting resources. We defined regional heterogeneity as the differences in resourcesupply rates (or resource availabilities) across local communities. As suggested byprevious work, the highest diversify occurred at intermediate levels of dispersal amonglocal communities. However our model shows how the effects of dispersal depend onthe amount of heterogeneity among local communities and vice versa. Both regionaland local species richness were the highest when heterogeneity was intermediate. Wesuggest that empirical studies that found no evidence for source sink or mass effects atthe community level may have examined communities with limited ranges of dispersaland regional heterogeneity. This model of species coexistence contributes to a broaderunderstanding of patterns in real communities.N. Mouquet, UMR 5554, ISEM, Univ. Montpellier II, Place Euge`ne Bataillon, CC 065,FR-34095 Montpellier Cedex 5, France (nmouquet@univ-montp2.fr). T. E. Miller,Dept of Biological Science, Florida State Univ., Tallahassee, FL 32306-1100, USA. T.Daufresne, Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ08544, USA. Present address: INRA Centre d’Etude de la Faune Sauvage, Chemin deBorde 16, Rouge-Auzeville, FR-31326 Castanet-Tolosan, France. J. M. Kneitel,Washington Univ., Campus Box 1137, St. Louis, MO 63130. Present address: Dept ofBiological Sciences, California State Univ., 6000 J Street, Sacramento, CA 95819-6077,USA.

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