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A DYNAMICAL SYSTEM FOR NEIGHBORHOODS INPLANT COMMUNITIES
Author(s) -
Law Richard,
Dieckmann Ulf
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.144
H-Index - 294
eISSN - 1939-9170
pISSN - 0012-9658
DOI - 10.1890/0012-9658(2000)081[2137:adsfni]2.0.co;2
Subject(s) - biological dispersal , spatial ecology , ecology , scale (ratio) , dynamical systems theory , seed dispersal , statistical physics , geography , biology , cartography , physics , sociology , population , demography , quantum mechanics
How should plant ecologists scale up from the fine‐scale events affecting individual plants in small neighborhoods to the coarse‐scale dynamics of plant communities? We give here a dynamical system, derived from an individual‐based model, that captures the main effects of spatial structure. The individual‐based model describes a multispecies plant community, living in a spatial domain, containing plants that (1) reproduce and die with rates that depend on other individuals in a specified neighborhood, and (2) move through seed dispersal and clonal growth. Over the course of time, substantial spatial structure can build up in such a community due to local interactions and dispersal. The dynamical system describes how the structure of local neighborhoods changes over time, using the first and second spatial moments of the individual‐based model. We show, by means of an example of two competing species, that the dynamical system gives a close approximation to the behavior of the underlying individual‐based model, and that the changes in local spatial structure as time progresses have fundamental effects on the dynamics.