The functional form of specialised predation affects whether Janzen-Connell effects can prevent competitive exclusion.

ABSTRACT: Janzen-Connell effects (JCEs), specialised predation of seeds and seedlings near conspecific trees, are hypothesised to maintain species richness. While previous studies show JCEs can maintain high richness relative to neutral communities, recent theoretical work indicates JCEs may weakly inhibit competitive exclusion when species exhibit interspecific fitness variation. However, recent models make somewhat restrictive assumptions about the functional form of specialised predation-that JCEs occur at a fixed rate when offspring are within a fixed distance of a conspecific tree. Using a theoretical model, I show that the functional form of JCEs largely impacts their ability to maintain coexistence. If predation pressure increases additively with adult tree density and decays exponentially wi

SUBMITTER: Smith DJB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9324109 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature