Many species are adapted to disturbance and occur within dynamic, mosaic landscapes that contain early and late successional microhabitats. Human modification of disturbance regimes alters the availability of microhabitats and may affect the viability of species in these ecosystems. Because restoring historical disturbance regimes is typically expensive and requires action at large spatial scal...

The microhabitat preference of caddisfly (Trichoptera) communities was studied in 8 types of microhabitats in a fast-flowing, medium-sized, lowland stream in Latvia. A total 36 caddisfly taxa belonging to 14 families were recorded in microhabitat samples. A PCA biplot of caddisfly taxa abundance in microhabitats showed 3 distinct caddisfly taxa groups: depositional [Limnephilidae Gen. sp., Anab...

Vegetated habitats contain a variety of fine-scale features that can ameliorate temperate extremes. These buffered microhabitats may be used by species to evade extreme weather and novel climates in the future. Yet, the magnitude and extent of this buffering on a global scale remains unknown. Across all tropical continents and using 36 published studies, we assessed temperature buffering from w...

In 1996, we investigated the female reproductive success of the narrow endemic Erodium paularense in a population with a mixture of rock and lithosol microhabitats. The main purposes of this study were to determine the main factors that affected reproductive success and whether these factors were influenced by differences in the two contrasting microhabitats. In both microhabitats, fruit set wa...

Each animal species selects specific microhabitats for protection, foraging, or micro-climate. To understand the distribution patterns of small mammals on the ground and in the understorey, we investigated the use of microhabitats by small mammals in a deciduous forest of southern Brazil. Ten trap stations with seven capture points were used to sample the following microhabitats: liana, fallen ...

1 A 2-year field study examined the demographic consequences of association with shrubs in an herbaceous perennial, Cryptantha flava . Physiological data were collected to evaluate whether shrub effects were mediated primarily through water, nutrient or light availability. 2 Microclimatic conditions under the north side of shrubs differed from open microhabitats, primarily in light availability...

In desertified regions, shrub-dominated patches are important microhabitats for ground arthropod assemblages. As shrub age increases, soil, vegetation and microbiological properties can change remarkably and spontaneously across seasons. However, relatively few studies have analyzed how ground arthropods respond to the microhabitats created by shrubs of different plantation ages across seasons....

Desiccation is an important limiting factor in the intertidal zone. Generally decreasing seaward, desiccation stress can also be alleviated in wet microhabitats. Juvenile snails are generally more susceptible to desiccation than adults, and, for some species, juveniles must therefore hide in microhabitats to survive emersion. The transition from hiding in safe microhabitats to being able to sur...

The role of habitat complexity has been widely neglected in the study of meiofaunal community patterns. We studied the intertidal nematode community of a structurally complex macrotidal beach exhibiting contrasting microhabitats (sandbars and runnels) to understand the influence of environmental gradients and habitat heterogeneity in the community structure. We tested whether topographical comp...

Most terrestrial plant communities exhibit relatively high species diversity and many competitive species are ubiquitous. Many theoretical studies have been carried out to investigate the coexistence of a few competitive species and in most cases they suggest competitive exclusion. Theoretical studies have revealed that coexistence of even three or four species can be extremely difficult. It ha...