Coexistence of species with different dispersal across landscapes: a critical role of spatial correlation in disturbance.

ABSTRACT: Disturbance is key to maintaining species diversity in plant communities. Although the effects of disturbance frequency and extent on species diversity have been studied, we do not yet have a mechanistic understanding of how these aspects of disturbance interact with spatial structure of disturbance to influence species diversity. Here we derive a novel pair approximation model to explore competitive outcomes in a two-species system subject to spatially correlated disturbance. Generally, spatial correlation in disturbance favoured long-range dispersers, while distance-limited dispersers were greatly suppressed. Interestingly, high levels of spatial aggregation of disturbance promoted long-term species coexistence that is not possible in the absence of disturbance, but only when the local d

SUBMITTER: Liao J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4874720 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature