Data from: Carryover effects drive competitive dominance in spatially structured environments

Understanding how changes to the quality of habitat patches affect the distribution of species across the whole landscape is critical in our human-dominated world and changing climate. Although patterns of species’ abundances across a landscape are clearly influenced by dispersal among habitats and local species interactions, little is known about how the identity and origin of dispersers affect these patterns. Because traits of individuals are altered by experiences in their natal habitat, differences in the natal habitat of dispersers can carry over when individuals disperse to new habitats and alter their fitness and interactions with other species. We manipulated the presence or absence of such carried-over natal habitat effects for up to eight generations to examine their influence on two interacting species across multiple dispersal rates and different habitat compositions. We found that experimentally accounting for the natal habitat of dispersers significantly influenced competitive outcomes at all spatial scales and increased total community biomass within a landscape. However, the direction and magnitude of the impact of natal habitat effects was dependent upon landscape type and dispersal rate. Interestingly, effects of natal habitats increased the difference between species performance across the landscape, suggesting that natal habitat effects could alter competitive interactions to promote spatial coexistence. Given that heterogeneity in habitat quality is ubiquitous in nature, natal habitat effects are likely important drivers of spatial community structure and could promote variation in species performance, which may help facilitate spatial coexistence. The results have important implications for conservation and invasive species management.明晰生境斑块（habitat patches）质量变化如何影响整个景观中物种的分布格局，在当前人类主导且气候持续变化的世界中至关重要。尽管景观内的物种丰度格局显然受生境间扩散与局域物种互作的调控，但学界对扩散者的身份与起源如何影响此类格局仍知之甚少。由于个体的性状会受其出生生境（natal habitat）中的经历所塑造，扩散者的出生生境差异会在个体扩散至新生境后得以延续，并改变其适合度与物种间互作关系。我们通过实验操控此类携带型出生生境效应的存在与否，最长持续八代，以探究其在多种扩散速率与不同生境组成下，对两种互作物种的影响。研究发现，在实验中纳入扩散者的出生生境因素，会显著影响所有空间尺度下的竞争结局，并提升景观内的群落总生物量。不过，出生生境效应的影响方向与强度，取决于景观类型与扩散速率。有趣的是，出生生境效应扩大了不同景观中物种的性能差异，这表明出生生境效应可通过改变物种间的竞争互作，进而促进空间共存（spatial coexistence）。鉴于自然生境中质量异质性普遍存在，出生生境效应很可能是驱动空间群落结构的重要因素，并可加剧物种性能的差异，这或有助于推动空间共存。本研究结果对生物多样性保护与入侵物种管理均具有重要的指导意义。