Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Equalising trade-offs, such as seed mass vs. number, have been invoked to reconcile neutral theory with observed differences between species. This is an appealing explanation for the dramatic seed size variation seen within guilds of otherwise similar plants: under size-symmetric competition, where resource capture is proportional to mass, the outcome of competition should be insensitive to whether species produce many small seeds or few large ones. However, under this assumption, stochastic variation in seed rain leads to exclusion of all but the smallest-seeded species. Thus stochasticity in seed arrivals, a process that was previously thought to generate drift, instead results in deterministic competitive exclusion. A neutral outcome is possible under one special case of a more general equalising framework, where seed mass affects survival but not competition. Further exploration of the feasibility of neutral trade-offs is needed to understand the respective roles of neutrality and niche structure in community dynamics.

Original publication

DOI

10.1111/j.1461-0248.2008.01214.x

Type

Journal article

Journal

Ecol Lett

Publication Date

10/2008

Volume

11

Pages

1037 - 1046

Keywords

Biodiversity, Biomass, Fertility, Models, Biological, Plant Development, Population Dynamics, Seeds, Trees