Metapopulations and metacommunities: combining spatial and temporal perspectives in plant ecology

1. Metapopulation and metacommunity theories occupy a central role in ecology, but can be difficult to apply to plants. Challenges include whether seed dispersal is sufficient for population connectivity, the role of seed banks and problems with studying colonization and extinction in long-lived and clonal plants. Further, populations often do not occupy discrete habitat patches. Despite these difficulties, we present case studies to illustrate explicit integration of spatial and temporal data in plant ecology.