The core-satellite hypothesis was proposed to explain regional patterns of species distribution. At the regional level, grassland data from sites in Oklahoma and Kansas conform to the general predictions of the core-satellite hypothesis. The patterns found on the scale of a local assemblage of species (m2), however, were similar to those of the regional-level distributions (km2). Factors affecting these distributions are competition and dispersal, which operate most commonly on small spatial scales, as well as disturbance, which is often a large-scale phenomenon in grasslands. Thus, grassland community structure exhibits self-similarity, in that the large-scale pattern is composed of numerous small-scale units of similar structure. We therefore conclude that grassland communities essentially exhibit small-scale patterns that are transposable to larger-scale patterns and vice versa. However, the patterns of distribution and abundance are dramatically affected by disturbance, and changes in these patterns are most obvious on an intermediate (community-level) scale of analysis.
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Collins et al. (1990) studied this question.