Plant size and spatial pattern in a natural population of Myosotis micrantha

This dataset was created for examining the spatial distribution of plant size in a natural plant population, and for understanding the processes which govern the same. A winter annual species, Myosotis stricta (formally known as Myosotis micrantha), was chosen for this purpose. Data collection was carried on the campus of Stony Brook University (Stony Brook, NY, USA) in May 1988, along a 700 cm x 20 cm transect. It was found that a size hierarchy existed in this plant population. Plants lacking immediate conspecific neighbors were larger than plants with one or more near neighbours, suggesting that competition from near neighbours depressed plant size. However, there was a strong positive spatial autocorrelation in plant size: large plants were associated with large neighbours and small ones with small neighbors. Plant size was also positively correlated with the combined biomass of near neighbors. Thus, the population formed a two-phase mosaic of patches of relatively large plants alternating with patches of smaller plants. These results were published in the paper titled Plant size and spatial pattern in a natural population of Myosotis micrantha (Wilson and Gurevitch, 1995).本数据集旨在探究自然植物种群中植株体型的空间分布格局，并解析调控该格局的生态学过程。本研究选取冬季一年生植物勿忘草（Myosotis stricta，曾用名Myosotis micrantha）作为实验材料。数据采集于1988年5月在美国纽约州石溪大学（Stony Brook University）校园内完成，沿一条700 cm × 20 cm的样带开展。研究发现该植物种群存在显著的体型等级结构：无邻近同种邻株的植株体型大于带有1个及以上同种邻株的植株，表明邻近邻株的种内竞争会抑制植株体型生长。然而，植株体型存在较强的正向空间自相关性：大型植株多与大型邻株伴生，小型植株则多与小型邻株相伴。植株体型还与邻近邻株的总生物量呈显著正相关。由此，该种群形成了由大型植株斑块与小型植株斑块交替分布构成的两相镶嵌格局。上述研究成果发表于题为《自然种群中勿忘草（Myosotis micrantha）的植株体型与空间格局》的论文（Wilson与Gurevitch，1995）中。