Alternative models of community assembly emphasize regional, stochastic, dispersal‐based
processes or local, deterministic, niche‐based processes. Community ecology's historical
focus on local processes implicitly assumes that local processes surpass regional processes
over time or across space to derive nonrandom metacommunity structure (ie, a quorum
effect). Quorum effects are expected late in succession among nearby sites, whereas
quorum effects are not expected early in succession among distant sites. I conducted a meta …