a b s t r a c t Conservation management that is focused on the scale of individual habitat patches rarely considers the implications for conservation of metacommunities at the regional scale. Here we examine the conserva-tion implications of long-term changes identified in a vascular plant metacommunity associated with lowland heathland in Dorset, UK. This was achieved by re-surveying 150 patches that were first surveyed in the 1930s and assessing changes in species distributions, diversity, community composition and meta-community structure. Results were compared for two sets: (i) all remaining heathland patches and (ii) intact heaths, excluding partly degraded sites. Overall, patterns of change were similar for the two sets. Values of c-and a-diversity both decreased over time as individual patches shifted towards either wood-land or improved grassland communities. However, only the intact heaths set exhibited a significant decrease in b-diversity. Both sets lost metacommunity structure over time, suggesting a change in under-lying processes. These changes were attributable both to management regimes adopted at local sites, relating to their differing ownership, and to wider processes of environmental change. These results high-light the need to place site-based conservation actions in the context of regional-scale processes, to ensure the long-term conservation of metacommunity structure and function.