Tuesday, August 7, 2007 - 8:00 AM

COS 28-1: Outcomes of competition when organisms integrate over different spatial scales and implications for clonal plant communities

Antonio J. Golubski, Katherine L. Gross, and Gary G Mittelbach. Michigan State University

Clonal plants that are physiologically integrated might perceive their environment at a coarser resolution than smaller, non-clonal competitors.  Here, models explore the implications of such an asymmetry in a two-patch system, where two species compete for two resources.  Species are either "non-integrators", whose growth in each patch depends on resource availabilities in that patch alone, or "integrators", whose growth is equal between patches and depends on average resource availabilities over both patches.  Because integrators allocate growth equally across patches, their density in the richer patch can be lower, while their density in the poorer patch higher, than an equivalent non-integrator would achieve, making them less effective in drawing down resources from rich patches but more effective in the poor patches.  If patches are complementary, integrators can achieve greater growth than an equivalent non-integrator would have in either patch.  Integrators can also suffer, however, possibly even being excluded from the system, when average equilibrium resource availabilities are worse than in one or both separate patches.  These factors combined yield a rich variety of outcomes: changing a non-integrator species to an integrator can help and/or hurt that species and/or its competitor, and often promotes coexistence. 

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