Stronger effect of individual species’ traits than shading on aquatic plant community productivity and interspecific competition

Competition is one of the major factors structuring plant communities. Species with similar traits generally compete more intensely and have more similar yield than functionally dissimilar species, which often respond differently to environmental change. Little is known about how the interacting species’ traits influence the effect of environmental change on interspecific competition. However, theory predicts that environmental change should lead to more asymmetric competition, by favouring the species best adapted to the particular environmental change. Here we used a mesocosm experiment with three common aquatic plant species from the Baltic Sea (Northern Europe), to test how community productivity and competition asymmetry were affected by functional dissimilarity, individual species’ traits, and a common stressor: shading. Competition asymmetry was defined as the absolute difference in reductions in yield relative to monocultures of two interacting species. Community productivity de..., ,