Project number: 23-07716S
Project title: Linking performance trade-off with modern coexistence theory and functional trait approach
Provider: Czech Science Foundation
Programme: GAČR Standard Projects 2023
Project coordinator: Czech University of Life Sciences Prague – FES
Project leader: Ing. Jan Douda, Ph.D.
Project manager: Ing. Michaela Rösslová, Ph.D.
Project schedule: 01/2023–12/2025
Total project budget: 8 985 000 CZK
Abstract:
What mechanisms allow species to coexist? Understanding this question, and a related issue, the maintenance of diversity in local communities, are matters of ongoing debate in community ecology. As the nature of species interactions in local communities is very complex, it is difficult using conventional experiments to disentangle coexistence outcomes (e.g., stabilising and neutral coexistence and competitive hierarchy). Here, we will apply modern coexistence theory and the proposed new approach to test the coexistence outcomes of plant-species pairs that differ in their competitive and stress tolerance abilities (performance trade-off). This enables determination of the importances of a range of mechanisms of species coexistence in plant communities under different environmental settings. This innovation promises significant advance beyond current knowledge of how species interact along a stress-gradient and also what are the likely outcomes for these species interactions in relation to long-term plant community coexistence.