The metacommunity concept is an important way to think about linkages between different
spatial scales in ecology. Here we review current understanding about this concept. We first …

… compartments (say, plants P and inorganic nutrient N) and two local ecosystems 1 and 2,
it … at equilibrium are either in the direction N 1 → P 1 → P 2 → N 2 → N 1 or in the opposite …

… patches given that no patch is ever … and Mouquet 1999), we assume indirect competition
for space; thence, once a plant occupies a site, it keeps it until its “natural” death. There is no …

… Thus, even in highly diverse systems, we can no longer assume that rare species can be
discounted by the high probability of functional redundancy. In these high-diversity systems, …

… The relevance of our model to other theoretical approaches is discussed elsewhere (Mouquet
and Loreau 2002); here we focus on interpreting our results and their limitation. …

… We set an extinction threshold to N ij (t) = 0.1; local populations lower than this threshold
biomass were regarded as extinct (22). We assumed autocorrelated, sinusoidal fluctuations of …

… -west coast of France (Brittany) concentrates high FD but low PD and TD, whereas the
north-east exhibits both areas of high TD and PD but low FD and areas with high PD but low TD …

… If no distinction is made between realized and fundamental specialization, then disentangling
specialization resulting from local adaptation, as opposed to apparent specialization …

Ecophylogenetics can be viewed as an emerging fusion of ecology, biogeography and
macroevolution. This new and fast‐growing field is promoting the incorporation of evolution and …

Metacommunity theory has advanced understanding of how spatial dynamics and local
interactions shape community structure and biodiversity. Here, we review empirical approaches …