Competition among plants shapes community structure and diversity, study finds.
The article reviews field experiments with plants to understand how competition affects community structure. Out of 101 experiments, most only looked at competition's impact on individual species. However, some consistent findings emerged: competition affects distribution patterns, relative abundances, and diversity. Surprisingly, intraspecific competition wasn't stronger than interspecific competition, suggesting resource partitioning may not be a key factor in plant coexistence.
