Different methods for niche and fitness differences computation offer contrasting explanations of species coexistence

Abstract

In modern coexistence theory, species coexistence can either arise via stabilizing mechanisms that increase niche differences or equalizing mechanisms that reduce fitness differences.Having a common currency for interpreting these mechanisms is essential for synthesizing knowledge across different studies and systems.Several methods for quantifying niche and fitness differences exist, but it remains unknown to what extent these methods agree on the reasons why species coexist. Here, we apply four common methods to quantify niche and fitness differences to one simulated and two empirical data sets. We ask if different methods result in different insights into what drives species coexistence. We find that different methods disagree on the effects of resource supply rates (simulated data), and of plant traits or phylogenetic distance (empirical data), on niche and fitness differences. More specifically, these methods often do not agree better than expected by chance. We argue for (1) a better understanding of what connects and sets apart different methods, and (2) the simultaneous application of multiple methods to enhance a more complete insight into why species coexist.

Multitrophic assembly: a perspective from modern coexistence theory

“…Intuitively, niche differences are a weighted average of the pair-wise niche differences a species has with the other species (Spaak et al ., 2021b), which is not affected by species richness for the basal species. In contrast, fitness differences species richness is the weighted sum of the pair-wise fitness differences (Spaak et al ., 2021d), which increases with increasing species richness as the sum has more terms. We then focus on higher trophic species.…”

“…Here, we adopt the definition proposed by Spaak & De Laender (2020) with adjustments made by Spaak et al (2021c). This definition is currently the only one out of all the definitions that can operate on multi-species and multi-trophic communities which agrees with intuitive undersanding of faciliation or 5 competition (Spaak et al, 2021d). While this definition works for more general population dynamics, we limit our focus on the Lotka-Volterra community model (Eqns.…”