On the Relationship between r/K Selection and Environmental Carrying Capacity: A New Habitat Templet for Plant Life History Strategies

Abstract

We propose a revision of the habitat templet approach for modelling the relationship between r/K selection and selection related to the level of resource impoverishment within vegetation. The latter is represented as a continuum on one axis of the templet by the mean annual environmental carrying capacity of the habitat. This is perpendicular to the second axis representing the traditional r/K selection continuum and defined by the mean annual distance below environmental carrying capacity that the vegetation is maintained at, usually as a consequence of different levels of disturbance (...)