Intransitivity increases plant functional diversity by limiting dominance in drylands worldwide.

ABSTRACT: 1. Biotic interactions are key determinants of plant community structure. Indirect interactions such as intransitivity (i.e. in the absence of competitive hierarchies among species) have been hypothesized to benefit diversity within plant communities. However, their effect on functional diversity remains scarcely explored in real communities. Here we develop a novel approach to infer intransitivity from plant spatial patterns and functional traits (height and specific leaf area), and quantify its effect on different components of plant diversity along environmental gradients in 100 drylands from all continents except Antarctica. 2. We first calculated the spatial association pattern for all perennials to infer competition between species. Trait values were used as a proxy of competi

SUBMITTER: Saiz H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6287709 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature