Applying modern coexistence theory to priority effects.

ABSTRACT: Modern coexistence theory is increasingly used to explain how differences between competing species lead to coexistence versus competitive exclusion. Although research testing this theory has focused on deterministic cases of competitive exclusion, in which the same species always wins, mounting evidence suggests that competitive exclusion is often historically contingent, such that whichever species happens to arrive first excludes the other. Coexistence theory predicts that historically contingent exclusion, known as priority effects, will occur when large destabilizing differences (positive frequency-dependent growth rates of competitors), combined with small fitness differences (differences in competitors' intrinsic growth rates and sensitivity to competition), create conditions under

SUBMITTER: Grainger TN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6442631 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature