Atolls are a widely distributed, common type of tropical ecosystem, each consisting of an annular coral reef and up to several hundred individual islets sitting on the reef platform. The small land areas and low elevation render the terrestrial communities susceptible to local extinctions from overwash and inundation due to tropical cyclones. Such recurring catastrophic disturbances should be expected to drive strong priority effects and historical contingency in species assembly, thus also promoting species turnover within atolls. This stands contradictory to the received wisdom of atolls consisting of numerous uniform, replicated island systems. We tested the hypothesis that the individual islets within an atoll exhibit compositional turnover and that this species turnover within atolls is related to cyclone frequency.

中文翻译：

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珊瑚环礁内的β多样性：陆地物种更替随着气旋频率的增加而增加

环礁是一种分布广泛、常见的热带生态系统，每个环礁都由环形珊瑚礁和位于礁台上的数百个独立小岛组成。陆地面积小、海拔低，使得陆地群落容易因热带气旋过度冲刷和洪水而局部灭绝。这种反复出现的灾难性干扰预计会在物种聚集中产生强烈的优先效应和历史偶然性，从而也促进环礁内的物种更替。这与环礁由众多统一的、复制的岛屿系统组成的普遍认知相矛盾。我们测试了这样的假设：环礁内的各个小岛表现出成分更替，并且环礁内的物种更替与气旋频率有关。