“…In our review, 16 studies analyzed the effect of space on meiofauna, using different ways: (i) by comparing metacommunity patterns between several spatial scales (Fontaneto et al, 2005;Matsuda et al, 2015;Dümmer et al, 2016), (ii) by testing the influence of geographical distances and the non-/linear effects of latitude and longitude (Fontaneto et al, 2011), and (iii) by testing the effect of nonlinear spatial variables modeled according to the geographical distances between sites (Escrivà et al, 2015;Zhai et al, 2015b;Michelson et al, 2016;Castillo-Escrivà et al, 2016a, b, 2017aRosati et al, 2017;de Campos et al, 2018). Most of the studies reported dispersal limitations (Escrivà et al, 2015;Zhai et al, 2015b;Castillo-Escrivà et al, 2016b, 2017aRosati et al 2017;de Campos et al, 2018), fewer dispersal sufficiency Fontaneto et al, 2011;Matsuda et al, 2015;Michelson et al, 2016;de Campos et al, 2018), and in one a significant spatial structure was attributed to a dispersal surplus (Castillo-Escrivà et al, 2016a). The different results may reflect actual differences in the realized dispersal of the studied taxa within the particular metacommunities, i.e., the metacommunity context (Fig.…”