Patterns and processes in insular floras affected by hurricanes

Methods We surveyed the plant species of 44 small islands over a 5-year period from 1998 to 2002. Hurricanes Lili and Michelle occurred in 1996 and 2001, respectively; both storms affected small islands on the more exposed south-west side of Great Exuma to a greater degree than small islands on the more protected north-east side. A set of 27 islands was surveyed in 1998 and 2002 to evaluate species turnover. Stepwise multiple linear regression analyses and an informationtheoretic approach (the Akaike information criterion) were used to elucidate the importance of area and distance as predictors of plant species number. We compared a piecewise linear regression model with a simple linear regression of species number against area to determine whether a small island effect existed. Nestedness patterns were evaluated by Wilcoxon two-sample tests to analyse occurrence sequences.