A basic community dynamics experiment: disentangling deterministic and stochastic processes in structuring ecological communities

Mark Davidson Jewell^1* and Graham Bell^1,2

¹Department of Biology, McGill University; 1205 ave Docteur Penfield, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1B1, Canada.

²Redpath Museum, McGill University; 859 Sherbrooke St West, Montreal, Quebec H3A 0C4, Canada.

*Corresponding author: mark.jewell@mail.mcgill.ca, 2629 Connolly St. Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. B3L 3M4. 902-329-9609

Authors’ contributions: MDJ performed the experiment and the analysis. GB conceived the study and developed the analytical procedure. MDJ wrote the manuscript and GB contributed substantially to revisions.

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Data availability: Raw data from which all figures were generated will be stored in the Dryad repository before publication of the article.

Type of article: Letters

Number of words in abstract: 142

Number of words in main text: 2582

Number of references: 27

Number of figures/tables: 5

Keywords: community dynamics, ecological drift, Lemnaceae, niche and neutral processes, species coexistence