Explaining high-diversity death assemblages : Undersampling of the living community, out-of-habitat transport, time-averaging of rare taxa, and local extinction
Molluscan benthic assemblages provide unique opportunities for understanding both spatial and temporal patterns of biodiversity. Species richness in the shell remains found at a site (i.e. the death assemblage) is typically several times higher than in the counterpart living assemblage, reflecting a complex history of settlement, dissemination and decomposition post-mortem. We used high-density te