Data from: Habitat-mediated carry-over effects lead to context dependent outcomes of species interactions

1. When individuals disperse, their performance in newly colonized
habitats can be influenced by the conditions they experienced in the past,
leading to environmental carry-over effects. While carry-over effects are
ubiquitous in animal and plant systems, their impact on species
interactions and coexistence are largely ignored in traditional
coexistence theory. 2. Here we used a combination of modelling and
experiments with two competing species to examine when and how such
environmental carry-over effects influence community dynamics and
competitive exclusions. 3. We found that variation in the natal habitat
quality of colonizing individuals created carry-over effects which altered
competitive coefficients, fecundity and mortality rates, and extinction
probabilities of both species. As a consequence, the dynamics of
competitive exclusion within and across habitat types was contingent on
the natal habitat of colonizing individuals, indicating that spatial
carry-over effects can fundamentally alter the dynamics and outcome of
interspecific competition. 4. Interestingly, carry-over effects
persistently influenced dynamics in systems with interspecific competition
for the entire duration of the experiment while carry-over effects were
transient and only influenced initial dynamics in single-species
populations. Thus carry-over effects can be enhanced by species
interactions, suggesting that their long-term effects may often not be
accurately predicted by single-species studies. 5. Given that carry-over
effects are ubiquitous in heterogeneous landscapes, our results provide a
novel mechanism that could help explain variation in the structure of
natural communities.