Dispersal is a pivotal process in ecology since it determines species presence across patches in landscapes. Therefore, understanding dispersal may be critical in light of current environmental changes. Here, we conducted an experiment to evaluate how richness, density, and β-diversity of insects with strong and/or weak aquatic and aerial dispersal abilities are influenced by colonization limitation of aerial and aquatic patches of a floating macrophyte. We used nets to isolate the aquatic (by roots) and aerial (by leaves) routes by which insects may colonize floating macrophytes. We found that strong aquatic and aerial dispersers were not affected by colonization limitation, since the richness and density of these groups did not decrease with limited colonization. Conversely, limited colonization resulted in a strong decrease in the richness and density of weak aquatic and aerial dispersers. Also, the beta diversity of weak dispersers strongly increased with limited colonization, whereas strong dispersers produced more homogeneous communities (low beta diversity). Our findings illustrate that increasing habitat fragmentation and destruction should have stronger impacts on weak dispersers as they are not able to overcome the habitat scarcity. Consequently, only strong dispersers may persist, leading to high community similarity.

扩散是生态学中的一个关键过程，因为它决定了景观中不同斑块的物种存在。因此，鉴于当前的环境变化，了解扩散可能至关重要。在这里，我们进行了一项实验，以评估具有强和/或弱水生和空中传播能力的昆虫的丰富度、密度和 β-多样性如何受到漂浮大型植物空中和水生斑块的定殖限制的影响。我们使用网来隔离昆虫可能在漂浮的大型植物上定殖的水生（通过根）和空中（通过叶子）路线。我们发现，强大的水生和空中分散器不受定植限制的影响，因为这些群体的丰富度和密度并没有随着定植限制而降低。反过来，有限的定殖导致弱水生和空中散布者的丰富度和密度大幅下降。此外，弱分散器的β多样性随着有限的定殖而强烈增加，而强分散器产生更同质的群落（低β多样性）。我们的研究结果表明，栖息地破碎化和破坏的增加应该对弱分散器产生更大的影响，因为它们无法克服栖息地的稀缺性。因此，只有强大的分散器可能会持续存在，从而导致高度的社区相似性。我们的研究结果表明，栖息地破碎化和破坏的增加应该对弱分散器产生更大的影响，因为它们无法克服栖息地的稀缺性。因此，只有强大的分散器可能会持续存在，从而导致高度的社区相似性。我们的研究结果表明，栖息地破碎化和破坏的增加应该对弱分散器产生更大的影响，因为它们无法克服栖息地的稀缺性。因此，只有强大的分散器可能会持续存在，从而导致高度的社区相似性。