Print PageLandscape fragmentation is generally accepted as a mechanism that disrupts structure of populations, species’ distributions and ecological communities. However, few studies have evaluated the extent to which metacommunity structure is affected following landscape fragmentation. Here we discuss an applied-field-ecological study of lizard metacommunity structure in a fragmented sand-dune landscape to assess the environmental factors that contribute to structure at two taxonomic scales. We use the "elements of metacommunity structure" analytical methods to discern pattern in species presence/absence datasets.
Results/Conclusions
We document that different environmental gradients structure lizard metacommunites in fragmented and non-fragmented landscapes in this ecosystem. In non-fragmented landscapes lizard metacommunities were strongly influenced by surface soil dynamics. Further, non-fragmented meta-ensembles (groupings of lizards that share common phylogeny, geography, and resources) were similar to non-fragmented lizard metacommunities in that they responded to the same gradient. However, neither fragmented metacommunties nor fragmented metaensembles were associated with this gradient. The loss of species in fragmented landscapes is postulated to be the result of stochastic species loss driven by increasing patch isolation and patch complexity.
