Results

At MFJ we obtained 3148 individuals, 17.4% adults and 82.6% saplings. The dominant species Q. faginea accounts for 44.4% of these individuals (1396), followed by P. halepensis (19.4%). At the MFS, we obtained 2029 individuals, 35.6% adults and 64.4% saplings. MFS had not a single dominant species, but most abundant were A. granatensis (24.4%), P. nigra (23.3%), C. monogyna(22.0%) and Q. faginea (17.0%). We obtained at each plot 9 species with sufficient adults and saplings (N> 20) for the species-level analyses, but the similarity matrix comprised the entire plant communities.
The Mantel tests revealed that epiphytes and leaf pathogens were at both plots positively correlated (τ = 0.37 at MFJ, and τ = 0.58 at MFS,p <0.001). Similarly, sucker and chewer insects were also positively correlated at both communities (τ= 0.68 at MFJ, and τ= 0.88 at MFS, p <0.001). The rest of the pairwise combinations were not correlated (Table S2). Note that despite of correlations among the number of organisms hosted, the strength of their effects can vary with distance among individuals.