INTERMEDIATE DISTURBANCE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO WITHIN-PATCH AND BETWEEN-PATCH DYNAMICS

The intermediate disturbance hypothesis has been the focus of consider able analysis in terrestrial and aquatic systems. This model predicts that species diversity will be highest at intermediate frequencies of disturbance. Despite numerous theoretical and empirical analyses, the utility of the model is still the subject of intense debate. Rather th an developing restrictive time and space constraints on application, w e suggest that the model may best be used as a generalizable framework for testing hypotheses in both aquatic and terrestrial systems, In ad dition, we believe that the model may be applied to both within- and b etween-patch scales. Finally, we propose an empirical model in which d isturbance is an extinction causing event, and post-disturbance succes sion is modeled based on the dynamics of immigration and extinction. S uch a model can incorporate a variety of patterns in species diversity in response to disturbance.