The structure of ecological communities is affected by both abiotic and biotic interactions. What role does ecological competition for resources play in determining plant community structure in temperate desert and prairie ecosystems? Competition can affect traits of individuals,popultion parameters such as population size and spatial dispersion, and community parameters such as species diversity.
In deserts, competition for water may play a role in causing the relatively even distribution of desert shrubs.
Prairies can often appear as a virtual monoculture, where one species dominates vast portions of the landscape. David Tilman, from the University of Minnesota, has developed a mechanistic model of competition for resources. Tilman and his then grad student Dave Wedin (Dave W. is now a professor at Nebraska) tests Tilman's R* model of competition using four species of prairie grasses at Cedar Creek Natural History Area in Minnesota. Their support of the R* model and the insights gained from their experiments confirm the utility of having our ecological investigations guided by theory.
http://www.slideshare.net/secret/oDCwnUzckOmSna
Next we will examine whether or not insights that we have gained into the role of competition in temperate regions are useful when applied to tropical rainforests.
These photos of my students are obviously staged. For the photo at the top of the post I asked them to pretend to be interested enough to answer a question. For this photo I asked them to look thoughtful.
No comments:
Post a Comment