Coexistence of perennial plants: an embarrassment of niches
Coexistence of perennial plants: an embarrassment of niches
复制标题
DOI：
10.1111/j.1461-0248.2010.01496.x
复制
发表时间：
2010-08-01
期刊：
影响因子：
8.8
通讯作者：
Levine, Jonathan M.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Adler, Peter B.;Ellner, Stephen P.;Levine, Jonathan M.
尽管几十年的研究记录了物种之间的生态位差异，但我们缺乏对它们对自然群落共存的影响的定量理解。我们扰动了一个经验性的山艾树草原群落模型，以消除生态位差异的人口效应，并量化其对共存的影响。随着稳定机制的运作，所有物种在稀有时都显示出正增长率，从而稳定共存。波动独立机制的贡献超过时间变异共存，更强烈的招聘比增长或生存。正如预期的那样，消除稳定的生态位差异导致了所有劣势竞争者的灭绝。然而，完全排除需要300-400年，这表明物种之间的适应性差异很小。我们的研究结果表明，“过剩”的生态位差异：稳定机制不仅强大到足以维持多样性，但更强大的比必要的小健身差异。如果不考虑生态位差异，就无法理解这个社区的多样性。
P>Despite decades of research documenting niche differences between species, we lack a quantitative understanding of their effect on coexistence in natural communities. We perturbed an empirical sagebrush steppe community model to remove the demographic effect of niche differences and quantify their impact on coexistence. With stabilizing mechanisms operating, all species showed positive growth rates when rare, generating stable coexistence. Fluctuation-independent mechanisms contributed more than temporal variability to coexistence and operated more strongly on recruitment than growth or survival. As expected, removal of stabilizing niche differences led to extinction of all inferior competitors. However, complete exclusion required 300-400 years, indicating small fitness differences among species. Our results show an 'excess' of niche differences: stabilizing mechanisms were not only strong enough to maintain diversity but were much stronger than necessary given the small fitness differences. The diversity of this community cannot be understood without consideration of niche differences.