Document: AAR-3-21-3

Assembly rules for dynamic habitats: Pitcher-plants and their associated inquiline communities.

ELLISON, A.M.* ¹ and N.J.GOTELLI ²

Dept. of Biology, Mt. Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA, USA ¹
Dept. of Biology, Univ. of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA ²

Abstract:
The search for general mechanisms of community assembly is a major focus of community ecology. Virtually all research on assembly rules to date: (1) attempts to derive process from static (usually single) observations of community structure (2) assumes that sampled communities are in equilibrium; and (3) assumes that habitats in which assembly occurs are unchanging. However, real habitats are dynamic, real communities are rarely in equilibrium, and inferring mechanisms from static community data is risky. We are experimentally studying inquiline communities of the northern pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea to elucidate their assembly rules. These communities, composed of aquatic insect larvae, rotifers, mites, protozoa, and bacteria, inhabit a habitat - the pitcher leaf - that changes size and shape on the same time scale as which community assembly occurs. Repeated sampling of individual pitchers illustrates temporal changes in community structure that reflect inquiline species interations as well as habitat changes in pitcher age and morphology. Persistence of constructed communities similarly depends on pitcher status. In addition, nutrients released to the pitcher plant by the inquilines alters morphology of subsequent pitchers. These complex feedback loops between.

Keywords: assembly rules, inquilines, non-equilibrium communities, pitcher plants

This abstract is being presented at: 10:20 AM in session:
Symposium # 19: Carnivorous Plants as Model Ecological Systems.