Does phylogenetic relatedness influence the strength of competition among vascular plants?

Cahill, James F.; Kembel, Steven W.; Lamb, Eric G.; Keddy, Paul A.

doi:10.1016/j.ppees.2007.10.001

Cited by 308 publications

(388 citation statements)

References 52 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

360

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Finally, Darwin's prediction that closely related species are strong competitors has been confirmed experimentally for plants and microbes (Maherali and Klironomos 2007, Burns and Strauss 2011, Violle et al 2011. Although a number of exceptions have been noted (e.g., Cahill et al 2008, Araya et al 2012, Godoy et al 2014, phylogenetic relatedness remains an informative surrogate for characterizing the similarity of species, particularly when functional trait data are unavailable (Swenson 2013). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest tree neighborhoods are structured more by negative conspecific density dependence than by interactions among closely related species

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Interactions among neighbors influence the structure of communities of sessile organisms. Closely related species tend to share habitat and resource requirements and to interact with the same mutualists and natural enemies so that the strength of interspecific interactions tends to decrease with evolutionary divergence time. Nevertheless, the degree to which such phylogenetically related ecological interactions structure plant communities remains unclear. Using data from five large mapped forest plots combined with a DNA barcode mega‐phylogeny, we employed an individual‐based approach to assess the collective effects of focal tree size on neighborhood phylogenetic relatedness. Abundance‐weighted average divergence time for all neighbors (ADT_all) and for heterospecific neighbors only (ADT_hetero) were calculated for each individual of canopy tree species. Within local neighborhoods, we found phylogenetic composition changed with focal tree size. Specifically, significant increases in ADT_all with focal tree size were evident at all sites. In contrast, there was no significant change in ADT_hetero with tree size in four of the five sites for both sapling‐sized and all neighbors, even at the smallest neighbourhood scale (0–5 m), suggesting a limited role for phylogeny‐dependent interactions. However, there were inverse relationships between focal tree size and the proportion of heterospecific neighbors belonging to closely related species at some sites, providing evidence for negative phylogenetic density dependence. Overall, our results indicate that negative interaction with conspecifics had a much greater impact on neighborhood assemblages than interactions among closely related species and could contribute to community structure and diversity maintenance in different forest communities.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest tree neighborhoods are structured more by negative conspecific density dependence than by interactions among closely related species

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While many plant competition studies examine processes of competition in terms of growth rates (Cahill et al 2008), the outcome of competition is often determined in subsequent generations by the relative number of viable seeds produced by competing species, which depends on pollination (Heilbuth et al 2001;Wilson & Harder 2003;Vamosi et al 2007). Scaling up from these local community dynamics are examinations of how local communities are assembled from regional species pools (Chave 2004;Tilman 2004), which depend upon rates of dispersal and ecological filtering (Myers & Harms 2009) as well as competition (Inouye et al 1980;Crawley & May 1987;Tilman 1994;Coomes & Grubb 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Floral colour versus phylogeny in structuring subalpine flowering communities

2010

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The relative number of seeds produced by competing species can influence the community structure; yet, traits that influence seed production, such as pollinator attraction and floral colour, have received little attention in community ecology. Here, we analyse floral colour using reflectance spectra that include near-UV and examined the phylogenetic signal of floral colour. We found that coflowering species within communities tended to be more divergent in floral colour than expected by chance. However, coflowering species were not phylogenetically dispersed, in part due to our finding that floral colour is a labile trait with a weak phylogenetic signal. Furthermore, while we found that locally rare and common species exhibited equivalent floral colour distances from their coflowering neighbours, frequent species (those found in more communities) exhibited higher colour distances from their coflowering neighbours. Our findings support recent studies, which have found that (i) plant lineages exhibit frequent floral colour transitions; and (ii) traits that influence local population dynamics contribute to community structure.

show abstract

“…species to coexist [1][2][3][4]. Darwin [5] proposed that competition should be strongest between close relatives because they share with each other more traits that influence species interactions, such as habitat use, the types of resources consumed and potential shared predators.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As such, he argued that closely related species should be the least likely to coexist. This idea is now commonly called the competition-relatedness hypothesis (CRH) [1], which is sometimes extended to suggest that species must evolve to differ by some minimum amount in order to stably coexist-an idea known as the phylogenetic limiting similarity [6]. Comprehensive tests of this hypothesis are critical because strong support for the CRH could motivate biologists to use phylogenetic distances between species to make important management decisions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary relatedness does not predict competition and co-occurrence in natural or experimental communities of green algae

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The competition-relatedness hypothesis (CRH) predicts that the strength of competition is the strongest among closely related species and decreases as species become less related. This hypothesis is based on the assumption that common ancestry causes close relatives to share biological traits that lead to greater ecological similarity. Although intuitively appealing, the extent to which phylogeny can predict competition and co-occurrence among species has only recently been rigorously tested, with mixed results. When studies have failed to support the CRH, critics have pointed out at least three limitations: (i) the use of data poor phylogenies that provide inaccurate estimates of species relatedness, (ii) the use of inappropriate statistical models that fail to detect relationships between relatedness and species interactions amidst nonlinearities and heteroskedastic variances, and (iii) overly simplified laboratory conditions that fail to allow eco-evolutionary relationships to emerge. Here, we address these limitations and find they do not explain why evolutionary relatedness fails to predict the strength of species interactions or probabilities of coexistence among freshwater green algae. First, we construct a new datarich, transcriptome-based phylogeny of common freshwater green algae that are commonly cultured and used for laboratory experiments. Using this new phylogeny, we re-analyse ecological data from three previously published laboratory experiments. After accounting for the possibility of nonlinearities and heterogeneity of variances across levels of relatedness, we find no relationship between phylogenetic distance and ecological traits. In addition, we show that communities of North American green algae are randomly composed with respect to their evolutionary relationships in 99% of 1077 lakes spanning the continental United States. Together, these analyses result in one of the most comprehensive case studies of how evolutionary history influences species interactions and community assembly in both natural and experimental systems. Our results challenge the generality of the CRH and suggest it may be time to re-evaluate the validity and assumptions of this hypothesis.

show abstract

Does phylogenetic relatedness influence the strength of competition among vascular plants?

Cited by 308 publications

References 52 publications

Forest tree neighborhoods are structured more by negative conspecific density dependence than by interactions among closely related species

Forest tree neighborhoods are structured more by negative conspecific density dependence than by interactions among closely related species

Floral colour versus phylogeny in structuring subalpine flowering communities

Evolutionary relatedness does not predict competition and co-occurrence in natural or experimental communities of green algae

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About