Tosetto E. G. auteur aut IRD Lett Christophe auteur aut IRD Koch Larrouy Ariane auteur aut IRD da Silva A. C. auteur aut IRD Neumann-Leitao S. auteur aut IRD Nogueira M. N. auteur aut IRD Barrier Nicolas auteur aut IRD Dossa A. N. auteur aut IRD Tchilibou M. auteur aut IRD Bauchot P. auteur aut IRD Morvan Guillaume auteur aut IRD Bertrand Arnaud auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf reformatted digital access Dispersal is more intense in the ocean than on land because most marine taxa present planktonic life stages that are transported by currents even without specific morphological traits. Thus, species dispersal shapes the distribution of biodiversity along seascapes and drives the composition of biodiversity assemblages. To identify marine assembling zones which characterise spatial areas particularly prone to receive and retain similar animal assemblages from the regional pool of species through passive dispersal, we propose a community-based approach grounded on Lagrangian simulations of plankton dispersal. This novel approach was applied to communities (coast, outer shelf, slope, seamounts and islands; 0-80 m depth) of the Tropical Southwestern Atlantic and used to assess connectivity pathways. For that, we classified the modelled particles in 15 categories according to biological traits (planktonic life duration and spawning habitat) of representative planktonic communities. From the hierarchical clustering of the multivariate matrix containing the amount of arriving particles from each category in each cell we defined 14 assembling zones. Results highlighted that the assembling zones were mostly shaped by the degree of exposure to currents and the presence of mesoscale features (eddies, recirculation) derived from the interaction between these currents and coastlines. The boundaries, dispersal and connectivity patterns of these zones consistently align with local and regional in situ spatial distribution and abundance patterns of organisms, and provide an appropriate basis for the formulation of ecological hypotheses in the metacommunity framework to be tested in situ, such as the balance between species sorting and mass effect assembling archetypes. This approach, when coupled with the knowledge of other processes shaping communities' structure and distribution, provides important insights for regions and animal groups for which knowledge is limited or absent, and more generally allows for a comprehensive overview of the distribution of distinct communities and connectivity pathways along marine environments. specialized community assembly landscape ecology mass effect metacommunity northeastern Brazil species sorting ATLANTIQUE BRESIL ZONE TROPICALE 036 082 [Early access] [17 ] 2023 0906-7590 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010088716 10.1111/ecog.07110 0906-7590 [F B010088716] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010088716 https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/2024-01/010088716.pdf IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2024-01-12 2025-02-24 fdi:010088716 fre