Resource limitation: fact or fiction? A study of the presence or absence of competition in understory plant communities with implications for fundamental and applied ecological research.

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Community ecology is a discipline concerned with understanding the distribution, abundance, and diversity of species, and community ecologists strive to elucidate the processes responsible for patterns observed in nature. While many different processes may contribute to the workings of natural systems, competition, defined as a negative interaction between organisms that occurs when required resources are in limited supply, has been the most widely studied and most emphasized species interaction in community ecology. A large number of theoretical models in ecology are based on the assumption that competition is widespread and important in natural communities, but recent studies have shown that competition may not be as important as is generally thought. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to perform a series of studies to test the assumption that competition is a common and widespread occurrence among plants. More specifically, I will investigate whether the conditions necessary for competition, i.e. limited resources, are in place in natural communities and will use information from this work to study environments' susceptibility to plant invasion by garlic mustard, a problematic invasive plant species in eastern North American forests. Results from this research will help us learn about the importance of competition in plant communities, which has implications not only for the conceptual and theoretical development of the discipline of community ecology, but can also contribute to a better understanding of invasion dynamics. Overall, addressing applied ecological questions of immediate environmental and economic concern, such as ones related to invasion biology, is important, but tackling fundamental ecological questions about the processes underlying community structure and dynamics is even more critical, as solutions to practical challenges imposed by rapid global change would be difficult to devise without a fundamental understanding of nature.