TY - JOUR
T1 - Life history complementarity and the maintenance of biodiversity
AU - Jops, Kenneth
AU - O’Dwyer, James P
N1 - Funding Information:
J.P.O. acknowledges the Simons Foundation Grant no. 376199, McDonnell Foundation Grant no. 220020439. We acknowledge helpful comments from M. Chytrý and D. Storch on co-occurring perennials in the Czech Republic. We acknowledge help from R. D’Andrea on formulating initial iterations of our model. Creative commons and public domain images: we acknowledge D. Loudermilk, who licensed the image used in Fig. (CC BY-SA 4.0); J. Hollinger (CC BY 2.0), M. Garcia (CC BY-SA 3.0), B. Gaberscek (CC BY 2.5 ) and P. Filippov (CC BY-SA 4.0) for the four images and licenses in Fig. , and the US Fish and Wildlife Service for the first three public domain images in Fig. (photographer D. Bender), B. Peterson (CC BY-SA 2.0) for the fourth image in in Fig. , and J. Horn (CC BY 4.0) for the final two images in Fig. .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2023/6/29
Y1 - 2023/6/29
N2 - Life history, the schedule of when and how fast organisms grow, die and reproduce, is a critical axis along which species differ from each other
1–4. In parallel, competition is a fundamental mechanism that determines the potential for species coexistence
5–8. Previous models of stochastic competition have demonstrated that large numbers of species can persist over long timescales, even when competing for a single common resource
9–12, but how life history differences between species increase or decrease the possibility of coexistence and, conversely, whether competition constrains what combinations of life history strategies complement each other remain open questions. Here we show that specific combinations of life history strategy optimize the persistence times of species competing for a single resource before one species overtakes its competitors. This suggests that co-occurring species would tend to have such complementary life history strategies, which we demonstrate using empirical data for perennial plants.
AB - Life history, the schedule of when and how fast organisms grow, die and reproduce, is a critical axis along which species differ from each other
1–4. In parallel, competition is a fundamental mechanism that determines the potential for species coexistence
5–8. Previous models of stochastic competition have demonstrated that large numbers of species can persist over long timescales, even when competing for a single common resource
9–12, but how life history differences between species increase or decrease the possibility of coexistence and, conversely, whether competition constrains what combinations of life history strategies complement each other remain open questions. Here we show that specific combinations of life history strategy optimize the persistence times of species competing for a single resource before one species overtakes its competitors. This suggests that co-occurring species would tend to have such complementary life history strategies, which we demonstrate using empirical data for perennial plants.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85161289471&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85161289471&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41586-023-06154-w
DO - 10.1038/s41586-023-06154-w
M3 - Article
C2 - 37286601
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 618
SP - 986
EP - 991
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 7967
ER -