Biodiversity and metacommunity structure of rocky intertidal invertebrates in some coastal ecosystems in Puerto Rico

The goals of this study were to determine the relative importance of environmental (wave power density, wave height) and habitat (e.g., algal cover, slope, complexity of rock surfaces) factors associated with the structure of local assemblages at multiple shore heights and the regional metacommunity of mobile invertebrates on oceanic rocky intertidal habitats. These characteristics and abundances of 41 species of invertebrate were estimated at 10 plots at each of three tidal heights at each of ten sites on the shoreline of Puerto Rico. Support for this work was provided by grants BSR-8811902, DEB-9411973, DEB-9705814 , DEB-0080538, DEB-0218039 , DEB-0620910 , DEB-1239764, DEB-1546686, and DEB-1831952 from the National Science Foundation to the University of Puerto Rico as part of the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Program. Additional support provided by the University of Puerto Rico and the International Institute of Tropical Forestry, USDA Forest Service.