Competition intensity is linked to the co‐occurrence status and height differences of plant species found growing together in an old‐field community
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Experimental evidence suggests that larger plant species generally have a competitive advantage and thus should dominate communities where competition for limiting resources (i.e. water, soil nutrients, light, space and/or mutualists) is intense. Additionally, researchers have postulated that competition can generate negative co‐occurrence patterns. However, neither expectation is strongly supported by empirical evidence. In a relatively undisturbed old‐field plant community, we explored the interdependency of these expectations by examining pairwise species co‐occurrences, and pairwise species maximum height differences (measured here as the maximum potential height of the species), and by estimating competition intensity for sample plots using field transplants grown with and without neighbours. Specifically, we tested whether maximum species height differences were greater for negatively co‐occurring species pairs than for positively co‐occurring pairs found growing together. We also tested whether the maximum species height differences and co‐occurrence status of species pairs were associated with the average competitive environment they tended to be found growing in. Negatively co‐occurring species pairs found growing together differed more in maximum height than in positively co‐occurring species pairs that were more similar in maximum height. Additionally, species maximum height differences between negatively co‐occurring species pairs where higher in less competitively intense plots, whereas species maximum heights were more similar between positively co‐occurring species pairs found growing together in less competitively intense plots. Synthesis . Our results suggest an association between estimates of competition intensity generated using transplant experiments and co‐occurrence patterns. These findings contribute to our understanding of the association between size‐mediated competition and spatial organization in plant communities and provide a framework for future research in this area.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".