Mechanisms of coexistence: Exploring species sorting and character displacement in woody plants to alleviate belowground competition

Rarely do we observe competitive exclusion within plant communities, even though plants compete for a limited pool of resources. Thus, our understanding of the mechanisms sustaining plant biodiversity might be limited. In this study, we explore two common ecological strategies, species sorting and character displacement, that promote coexistence by reducing competition. We assess the degree to which woody plants may implement these two strategies to lower belowground competition for nutrients which occurs via nutritional (mostly mycorrhizal) mutualisms. First, we compile data on plant traits and the mycorrhizal association state of woody angiosperms using a global inventory of indigenous flora. Our analysis reveals that species in locations with high mycorrhizal diversity exhibit distinct mean values in leaf area and wood density based on their mycorrhizal type, indicating species sorting. Second, we reanalyze a large dataset on leaf area to demonstrate that in areas with high mycorrhiz..., All analyses were carried out to the subset of Angiosperms that were classified as woody species. We obtained data on leaf Area, tree height, leaf mass per area (LMA), and seed mass trait values from the Global Spectrum of Plant Form and Function Dataset (Díaz et al., 2022), and wood density information from the International Centre for Research on Agroforestry (World Agroforestry 2023). The selection of plant traits for our analysis was a compromise between feasibility, yielding information for divergent sets of plant species, and covering the three documented sets of autocorrelated traits: the leaf economics spectrum, the wood economics spectrum, and the root economics spectrum. Lists of indigenous species per location were extracted from The Global Naturalized Alien Flora database, a global inventory (van Kleunen et al., 2019). To assess leaf area variability across plant species' distribution ranges, we utilized the SLA dataset from Wright et al. (2017). Mycorrhizal association type..., , # Mechanisms of coexistence: exploring species sorting and character displacement in woody plants to alleviate belowground competition. [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n2z34tn54](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n2z34tn54) Most of the guidelines are available on the attached R script. All data are actually publically available and we derive information, whenever possible, from the original datasets. We included here only two files that required extensive processing which we could not integrate to the code. The two files contain multiple \"null\" values, which should be replaced by empty cells before running the code. **coords.submit.csv** contains coordinates at a crude resolution for all the sites in the Naturalized Alien Flora database for whch we could do the matching. **mycorrhizaandwd.csv** contains wood density and mycorrhizal type information that we extracted from the following two sources: World Agroforestry and Delavaux et al., 2019. ## Description of the data and file structu...尽管植物会争夺有限的资源库，但我们极少在植物群落中观察到竞争排除现象。因此，我们对维持植物生物多样性的机制的认知可能存在局限。本研究探讨了两种常见的生态策略——物种筛选（species sorting）与性状置换（character displacement），二者通过减弱竞争促进物种共存。我们评估了木本植物通过这两种策略降低地下养分竞争的程度，而这类地下竞争通常由营养共生（多为菌根（mycorrhizal）共生）介导。首先，我们依托全球本土植物名录，汇编了木本被子植物的性状数据及其菌根共生状态。分析结果显示，在菌根多样性较高的区域，物种根据其菌根类型在叶面积和木材密度上呈现出显著的均值差异，这表明存在物种筛选现象。其次，我们对一套大型叶面积数据集进行了再分析，以证明在菌根多样性较高的区域……所有分析均针对被归类为木本物种的被子植物子集展开。我们从《植物形态与功能全球谱数据集（Global Spectrum of Plant Form and Function Dataset）》（Díaz等，2022）中获取了叶面积、树高、比叶面积（leaf mass per area, LMA）以及种子质量的性状值，并从国际农林业研究中心（World Agroforestry，2023）获取了木材密度数据。本次分析所选植物性状在可行性（可为不同类群植物提供数据）与覆盖三大已证实的自相关性状谱——叶片经济谱、木材经济谱以及根系经济谱——之间取得了平衡。各区域本土物种名录源自《全球归化外来植物数据库（Global Naturalized Alien Flora database）》（van Kleunen等，2019）这一全球名录。为评估植物物种分布范围内的叶面积变异，我们使用了Wright等（2017）的SLA数据集。菌根共生类型……# 共存机制：探索木本植物的物种筛选与性状置换以缓解地下竞争。[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n2z34tn54] 大部分指南可在所附R脚本中查阅。所有数据均已公开，我们尽可能从原始数据集获取信息。本次仅上传了两个需经过大量处理且无法整合至代码的文件。这两个文件包含多个"null"值，运行代码前需将其替换为空白单元格。**coords.submit.csv** 包含我们可完成匹配的《归化外来植物数据库》中所有站点的粗分辨率坐标。**mycorrhizaandwd.csv** 包含我们从以下两个来源提取的木材密度与菌根类型信息：世界农林业中心以及Delavaux等，2019。## 数据与文件结构描述……