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.

群落生态学是一门了解物种分布、丰富度和多样性的学科，群落生态学家努力阐明自然界中观察到的模式的过程。虽然许多不同的过程可能有助于自然系统的运作，竞争被定义为当所需资源供应有限时发生的生物之间的消极相互作用，是群落生态学中研究最广泛和最强调的物种相互作用。生态学中大量的理论模型都是基于这样一个假设，即竞争在自然群落中是广泛而重要的，但最近的研究表明，竞争可能不像人们通常认为的那样重要。因此，本研究的目的是进行一系列研究，以验证竞争是植物之间普遍和广泛发生的假设。更具体地说，我将调查竞争的必要条件，即有限的资源，是否在自然群落中存在，并将利用这项工作的信息来研究环境对植物入侵的易感性，大蒜芥茉是北美东部森林中有问题的入侵植物物种。本研究的结果将有助于我们了解竞争在植物群落中的重要性，这不仅对群落生态学的概念和理论发展具有重要意义，而且有助于更好地理解入侵动力学。总的来说，解决直接的环境和经济问题的应用生态问题，如与入侵生物学相关的问题，是重要的，但解决关于潜在的群落结构和动态过程的基本生态问题更为关键，因为如果没有对自然的基本理解，就很难设计出应对快速全球变化所带来的实际挑战的解决方案。

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.