Understanding how communities respond to environmental pressures is important for conservation planning and management. In this observational study, we examined the SLOSS debate and the ecological concept of nestedness in respect to how saxicolous lichen communities in sub-alpine habitats are structured. We analyzed the effects of patch size on the species richness and distribution of saxicolous lichen. We surveyed 242 granitic rocks in the White Mountains, California, and collected data on the

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... different taxa found. Our results showed that there was greater species richness per m2 on small rocks, supporting the "Several Small" side of the SLOSS debate. Additionally, we found that there was a high degree of nestedness in our study system. Saxicolous lichen provide a manageable scale to test community-level ecological concepts and allow us to better define the boundaries of their applications.