EVIDENCE FOR INTRASPECIFIC COMPETITION IN THE ACACIA-CAVEN (LEGUMINOSAE) SAVANNA OF CHILE
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Date
1979
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Abstract
In the Chilean savanna, A. caven plants exhibit a spatial distribution pattern in which larger individuals tend to be further apart than smaller individuals of this species. Since published models of interspecific competition in plants do not account for the phenomenon as observed in A. caven, a new model is developed in which root systems of nearest neighbors are allowed to overlap. In these circumstances resources actually available to the plants increase fairly linearly with nearest neighbors distance. The model predicts a positive linear correlation between the sum of squares of the trunk radii of nearest neighbors and the distance separating them. This prediction of the model was tested with A. caven and was able to generate the observed distribution pattern.