Latitudinal variation in the competition‐colonisation trade‐off reveals rate‐mediated mechanisms of coexistence

Abstract

Theories of species coexistence often describe a trade-off between colonising and competitive abilities. In sessile marine invertebrates, this trade-off can manifest as trends in species distributions relative to the size of isolated patches of substrate. Based on their abilities to find available substrate and competitively exclude neighbours, good colonisers tend to dominate smaller patches, whereas better competitors tend to monopolise larger patches. In theory, species with equivalent colonising and competitive abilities should display similar distributions across patch sizes. We used patch size to observe this manifestation of the competition-colonisation trade-off over 20° of latitude. The trade-off was more readily observed at lower latitudes and was proportional to the 'ecological age' of communities (i.e. the degree of resource acquisition and likelihood of species interactions). Results suggest that ecological age may mediate the prominence of stochastic or deterministic coexistence mechanisms and will depend on the rate of ecological processes.

Habitat complexity effects on diversity and abundance differ with latitude: an experimental study over 20 degrees

“…Note: Bold face denotes fixed factors and interactions that were interpreted as significant (P < 0.05). (Stachowicz et al 2002b, Brown et al 2004, O'Connor et al 2007, Bracewell et al 2017. Secondary growth at these sites also indicates that some organisms had become habitat themselves.…”

“…, Bracewell et al. ). Secondary growth at these sites also indicates that some organisms had become habitat themselves.…”

“…In addition to a latitudinal diversity gradient in these communities (Freestone and Inouye ), the rate of community development can also vary latitudinally (Freestone and Osman , Bracewell et al. ). Additionally, taxonomic and functional group‐specific habitat associations have been identified (Lemire and Bourget , Whalan et al.…”

Trait‐based approach to monitoring marine benthic data along 500 km of coastline

“…Such small assemblages with high niche specialization and functional evenness evoke initial successional stages (Song & Saavedra, ) that may result from the strong disturbance regimes of intertidal environments, which constantly reset communities (Defeo & McLachlan, ). Therefore, SES variability in IBS is likely to reflect different “ecological ages” of assemblages (Bracewell, Johnston, & Clark, ), rather than different assembly mechanisms, abiotic constraints largely governing these IBS communities (Quillien, Nordström, Guyonnet, et al, ).…”

Simultaneous shifts in elemental stoichiometry and fatty acids of &lt;i&gt;Emiliania huxleyi&lt;/i&gt; in response to environmental changes

“…GLMMs combine the properties of two statistical models (linear mixed models and generalized linear models) (Bolker et al, 2009) and have been widely used in ecology (e.g., Bracewell et al, 2017;Frère et al, 2010;Jamil et al, 2014), in which data sets are often non-normally distributed. In our study, response variables included µ max , elemental stoichiometry (elemental cellular contents (as pg cell −1 ) and their molar ratios), POC and PIC population yield (as µg mL −1 ) and production (as pg cell −1 d −1 ), FA proportion (as % of TFAs) and contents (as µg mg C −1 ), with temperature, N : P supply ratios and pCO 2 as fixed effects.…”