Data from: Applying Lanchester’s laws to the interspecific competition of coral reef fish

Lanchester’s laws of combat are a mathematical framework describing the
relative contributions of individual fighting ability and group size to
overall group fighting ability. Since 1993, several studies have attempted
to apply this framework to interspecific dominance relationships between
nonhuman animals. However, this prior work addressed only the corollaries
of Lanchester’s laws rather than the laws themselves. Here, we directly
test Lanchester’s linear and square law to explain interspecific
competition of coral reef fish. First, we analyzed the relationship
between body size and dominance to find a biologically accurate proxy of
individual fighting ability. We then tested whether group fighting ability
was linearly (linear law) or quadratically (square law) related to group
size while accounting for the different fighting abilities of competing
species. We found support for the linear law; however, both laws were
outperformed by a simpler model that only included body size. After
accounting for possible outliers and data limitations, we suggest that
Lanchester’s linear law may prove useful for explaining interspecific
competition in marine ecosystems.