Interspecific relationship of patchiness to occupancy and abundance, as exemplified by seagrass macrobenthos

• Relations of Lloyd's I p macrobenthic patchiness studied in 6 types seagrass. Interspecific closely correlated with unoccupancy. Less so abundance, and not mean crowding, c. correlates the expression ' a .unoccupancy + (1? ) c where > 0.8. Patchiness-unoccupancy relationship unaffected by assemblage composition. The macroecological abundance-occupancy is well known; potential one either or both. Following earlier work on intertidal seagrass Zostera capensis South Africa, interspecific macrofaunal patchiness-occupancy patchiness-abundance relationships were investigated within each number other systems (intertidal Cymodocea serratula , Halodule uninervis Halophila ovalis muelleri Z. noltei subtidal faunal assemblages markedly different their overall abundance species richness, beds differed latitude, longitude, variables, including an artificial canal residential marina. Notwithstanding these differences, all cases more abundant widespread species, less was its patchiness, clearly respect occupancy than abundance. Correlation crowding ( values relatively poor, often significant. This suggests that influenced unoccupancy levels even marked variation at occupied sites (e.g. <0.3–>380). Indeed, [ ). ], >0.80. In cases, component displayed significant near negative form power-law scaling coefficient across ?0.76, although data points appeared highly scattered. There little uniformity amongst life-style most patchy, abundant.