Landscape connectivity is a key regulator of dispersal, which is an important process in community assembly. Theory predicts that connectivity may influence spatial and temporal patterns of community assembly; however, empirically evaluating the role of connectivity is nearly impossible due to the need to isolate its influence over long time frames and large spatial extents. We overcome these challenges through a large-scale, long-term connectivity experiment to test how connectivity affects plant community turnover and directionality of change over 24 years of assembly. Plant communities within connected patches had lower temporal variability in composition compared to plant communities within unconnected patches. Differences in composition between patches and the directionality of compositional changes were driven more by the amount of edge habitat in a patch and the time since the start of assembly. All community responses to connectivity were stronger for species with wind or unassisted dispersal compared to those with seeds dispersed by animals. Connectivity's role in regulating local community dynamics is critical for understanding community assembly and increasingly relevant in an era of anthropogenic land-use change.
Hulting, K. A., Brudvig, L. A., Burt, M. A., Warneke, C. R., Damschen, E. I., Haddad, N. M.
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