College of Life and Environmental Sciences, Xiasha Campus, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
PLoS One. 2011 May 10;6(5):e19762. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019762.
Despite the recent popularity of the metacommunity concept, ecologists have not evaluated the applicability of different metacommunity frameworks to insular organisms. We surveyed 50 closely spaced islands in the Thousand-Island Lake of China to examine the role of local (environmental) and regional (dispersal) factors in structuring woody plant assemblages (tree and shrub species) on these islands. By partitioning the variation in plant community structure into local and regional causes, we showed that local environmental conditions, specifically island morphometric characteristics, accounted for the majority of the variation in plant community structure among the studied islands. Spatial variables, representing the potential importance of species dispersal, explained little variation. We conclude that one metacommunity framework-species sorting-best characterizes these plant communities. This result reinforces the idea that the traditional approach of emphasizing the local perspective when studying ecological communities continues to hold its value.
尽管元生物群落概念最近很流行，但生态学家尚未评估不同元生物群落框架在岛屿生物中的适用性。我们调查了中国千岛湖中 50 个紧密分布的岛屿，以检验本地（环境）和区域（扩散）因素在这些岛屿上木质植物组合（乔木和灌木物种）结构中的作用。通过将植物群落结构的变化划分为本地和区域原因，我们表明，本地环境条件，特别是岛屿形态特征，解释了研究岛屿之间植物群落结构变化的大部分原因。空间变量代表物种扩散的潜在重要性，解释了很少的变化。我们得出结论，一个元生物群落框架——物种分选——最能描述这些植物群落。这一结果强化了这样一种观点，即在研究生态群落时强调本地视角的传统方法仍然具有价值。
