Abstract
We propose and discuss a simulation model of annual plants competing for a single resource. Plants are characterised by their tolerance to a surplus of this resource and the maximum number of seeds a plant can produce in a year. Interaction among plants is reduced to blocking a part of the resource by the plant’s nearest neighbours. Spatial and temporal conditions are homogeneous. There are no trade-off mechanisms nor immigrants. Plants may suffer from both a lack and too much of the resource. We consider two systems - plants of one type (target plants) and a mixture of two types, where the second type differs from the target ones only by the tolerance to surplus of the resource. We show how the life cycle of a plant depends on its tolerance, on supply of the resource and on how it is affected by the presence of the second type of annuals. We demonstrate that even in such a simple system coexistence of the two species is possible, and we determine the conditions for this. We present also a mean field type approach to the problem, showing that the results from simulations and mean field are quite similar. However the mean field approach cannot answer questions concerning spatial arrangement of plants, like possible formation of niches for different types of plant.
Highlights
The problem of coexistence of species and maintaining biodiversity is one of the central issues of plant ecology [1]
Pairwise (PW) experiments of annual plants have been reported by Goldberg and Fleetwood [13], where the effect of the presence of the nearest neighbouring plants has been studied and the plant types differed in many aspects
In this paper we present a model of a PW simulation experiment of annual plants
Summary
The problem of coexistence of species and maintaining biodiversity is one of the central issues of plant ecology [1]. We have decided to reduce the characteristics of the plants to just their demand for one resource – tolerance to a surplus of it and the maximum number of seeds a plants can produce in a year. Reducing the interaction strength leads to an increase of the plants’ abundance, sharpening its peak value and bringing it closer to = 1, as with weak interactions less water is blocked Since both types of plant use the same resource, we have the case of p = 1, i.e. complete niche overlap in the terminology of Chesson [1]. We have the following control parameters reduced resource supply w, tolerance of plants P1 - τ1 and of plants P2 - τ2, maximum number of seeds a plant can produce β, equal for both types of plant, and the interaction strength.
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