Using communities of aquatic plants and zooplankton assembled from natural propagule banks in mesocosms, we tested whether the diversity of the resident community (diversity resistance) and the timing of immigrants’ arrival (priority effects) determine community diversity.
Our results show that the interaction between diversity resistance and priority effects determines the diversity of aquatic plant communities. This effect is, however, superseded by environmental filtering in zooplancton. The mechanisms underlying biotic resistance therefore vary among functional and taxonomic groups.
D.S. Viana, B. Cid, J. Figuerola, L. Santamaría (2016) Disentangling the roles of diversity resistance and priority effects in community assembly. Oecologia (early view).
