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Plant species richness and community productivity: why the mechanism that promotes coexistence matters

Plant species richness and community productivity: why the mechanism that promotes coexistence... This paper stresses that the mechanism of coexistence is the key to understanding the relationship between species richness and community productivity. Using model plant communities, we explored two general kinds of mechanisms based on resource heterogeneity and recruitment limitation, with and without any trade‐off between reproductive and competitive abilities. We generated different levels of species richness by changing model parameters, in particular the number of species in the regional pool, the degree of recruitment limitation, and the level of heterogeneity. Different diversity–productivity patterns are obtained with different coexistence mechanisms, indicating there is no reason to expect any general relationship between species richness and productivity. We discuss these results in the context of the within‐site and across‐site aspects of the relationship between species richness and productivity. Furthermore, we extend these results to hypothesize the relationship between species richness and productivity for other coexistence mechanisms not explicitly considered here. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Ecology Letters Wiley

Plant species richness and community productivity: why the mechanism that promotes coexistence matters

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References (50)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company
ISSN
1461-023X
eISSN
1461-0248
DOI
10.1046/j.1461-0248.2002.00281.x
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This paper stresses that the mechanism of coexistence is the key to understanding the relationship between species richness and community productivity. Using model plant communities, we explored two general kinds of mechanisms based on resource heterogeneity and recruitment limitation, with and without any trade‐off between reproductive and competitive abilities. We generated different levels of species richness by changing model parameters, in particular the number of species in the regional pool, the degree of recruitment limitation, and the level of heterogeneity. Different diversity–productivity patterns are obtained with different coexistence mechanisms, indicating there is no reason to expect any general relationship between species richness and productivity. We discuss these results in the context of the within‐site and across‐site aspects of the relationship between species richness and productivity. Furthermore, we extend these results to hypothesize the relationship between species richness and productivity for other coexistence mechanisms not explicitly considered here.

Journal

Ecology LettersWiley

Published: Jan 28, 2002

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