Coexistence in local communities could be mediated through several mechanisms such as interespecific competition, temporal and spatial heterogeneity. In this paper we analyse a highly diverse guild of necrophagous insects to determine the role played by aggregation on community structure. An experiment was designed to test predictions derived from aggregation model of coexistence that in short require that in the balance between intra and interespecific competition, the first one must be greater than interespecific competition in order to make coexistence more likely. The data gathered comprise two protocols: collecting adults visiting carcasses and rearing maggots collected from carcasses. The results showed a total of 21 necrophagous species reared and 18 collected. All species showed clumped patterns of distribution over resources and even though several negative values were found in association indices, the overall trend was a neutral covariation between species. The analysis also confirms that aggregation could maintain diversity in this community.
Aggregation model; coexistence; local diversity
