Colonization Curves for Planar Marine Islands

Abstract

Marine fouling and successional studies, documenting species changes on flat, isolated objects, provide some additional data on island colonization. Plotting numbers of species on these planar islands over time allows construction of several colonization curves. Contrary to the MacArthur—Wilson equilibrium model, in many cases these curves do not convincingly approach an equilibrium number of species during colonization. This contrasts with findings for most, but not all, three—dimensional islands. Continuing increases in the number of species on these two—dimensional islands is probably attributable to the large number of species available relative to the number accumulating on these small panel islands, rather than to successional changes on the islands themselves. Evidence indicates that in areas of substantial seasonal temperature change the shape of the colonization curve varies seasonally: in warmer months the colonization curve initially rises more rapidly than during colder months.