Habitat structure, resources and diversity: The separate effects of surface roughness and macroalgae on stream invertebrates

Abstract

Habitat structure has pervasive effects on community composition and diversity, with physically complex habitats often containing more species than physically simple ones. What factors or mechanism drive this pattern is little understood, but a complicating problem is that different sources of habitat structure can be confounded in both surveys and experiments. In this study, we carried out an experiment in which two sources of habitat structure, attached macroalgae and substrate surface texture, were separately manipulated to discern their joint and separate effects upon the diversity and composition of colonizing macroinvertebrates in a stony, upland stream. Because stream algae vary marke..