Connectivity and nestedness of the meta-community structure of moss dwelling bdelloid rotifers along a stream

摘要: We analyzed meta-community structure of bdelloid rotifers colonizing mosses along an 80 meter section Rio Valnava in NW Italy. Bdelloid are small animals living associated with a substratum; colonization bdelloids can be produced by active moving the riverbed, or passive dormant propagules, moved wind. To detect which kind might stronger at different spatial scales, we designed spatially nested sampling experiment three hierarchical levels: (1) single sample, (2) 10 communities inside each pool, (3) complete pools. Assessing species richness and similarity communities, coherence nestedness meta-communities, found that forces may drive composition scales: largest scale, propagules over-ride direct dispersal between pools, while scale differential movements give to meta-communities. The number increased as level analysis increased, even though this study was carried out only stream section.