Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Functional Traits And Environmental Characteristics Drive The Degree Of Competitive Intransitivity In European Saltmarsh Plant Communities, Werner Ulrich, Yasuhiro Kubota, Agnieszka Piernik, Nicholas J. Gotelli

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Competitive intransitivity, the existence of loops in competitive hierarchies, is one mechanism that can promote the local coexistence of competitors and maintain high local species diversity, although its prevalence and importance remain largely unknown. A full understanding of local community assembly needs knowledge of how transitive and intransitive competitive interactions are linked to species functional traits and the strength of biotic and abiotic filters. We apply a recently developed statistical tool to quantitative data on central European inland saltmarsh plant communities to infer causal relationships between soil characteristics, species occurrences and functional traits, and we estimated coefficients of competition. We …