ArticleEcology2025
An experimental test on the effects of dispersal from different habitat sources on community structure.
Article in Ecology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- An experimental test on the effects of dispersal from different habitat sources on community structure.Ecology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
15 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Biological interactions, disturbances, and demographic stochasticity often drive population declines and local extinctions. Dispersal can counterbalance these drivers by rescuing small populations or facilitating recolonization. Using freshwater zooplankton in experimental mesocosms, we tested three hypotheses: (1) isolated sites would experience declines in species richness, with ecological drift causing communities to lose different species and become more dissimilar over time; (2) communities connected by dispersal from similar habitats would maintain their species richness and composition, as arriving species balance losses through rescue effects and recolonization, thereby halting community differentiation; and (3) dispersers originating from different sources may establish themselves in recipient communities through mass effects, resulting in higher species richness compared to communities receiving dispersers from similar habitat sources. Thirty 500-L tanks were initially colonized with zooplankton from lake A, and 10 tanks with colonizers from lake B, which had partially distinct species composition. Tanks were kept isolated for 50 days, after which 10 tanks initially colonized by lake A began receiving dispersers from paired tanks also colonized by lake A (treatment Aa). Another 10 tanks colonized by lake A received dispersers from paired tanks colonized by lake B (Ab). We found that isolated communities (A0, B0) tended to lose species over time and differentiate from one another, indicating differential local extinctions. Communities receiving dispersers from the same habitat (Aa) halted species losses and maintained their species richness, whereas those receiving species from a different habitat (Ab) not only halted species losses but also accumulated additional species over time. Treatments receiving dispersers (Aa, Ab) exhibited beta diversity (among replicates within treatments) similar to levels observed prior to dispersal events. Comparisons of paired source-recipient tanks (A0-Aa, B0-Ab) further supported the finding of differential extinctions in isolated communities. Our results demonstrate that dispersal counteracts declining species richness and increasing differentiation caused by differential local extinctions in isolated communities, either through rescue or mass effects.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.