Fig. 1

Variability experiment. Temporal patterns of disturbance events for all eight treatment combinations. Single boxes represent 5-day intervals. Open boxes indicate among disturbance intervals, while filled boxes mark intervals when a disturbance event was applied on the first day of this interval. Different levels of disturbance variation are colour-coded: black regular, dark grey lowly irregular, and light grey highly irregular. Patterns of box fillings indicate different sequences (a full, b brick, and c chess board) of disturbance events. Numbers at the start of lines code different treatment combinations. Sampling dates are arrowed