Introduced plant species show weaker conspecific density dependence than native plant species

Conspecific negative density dependence (CNDD) is necessary for plant
coexistence, as it limits each species’ local density and dominance. The
high densities attained by many introduced plant species suggest they
experience weaker CNDD than native species, yet this has not been tested.
This dataset contains fine-scale plant composition data from temperate
forest understory communities on Long Island, NY, USA, which was used to
contrast CNDD in native and introduced plant species. CNDD is expected to
generate conspecific spatial repulsion (spatial overdispersion), but other
processes such as dispersal limitation tend to generate clustered
distributions of conspecifics. Therefore, we quantified observed spatial
patterns in study populations to those seen in simulations of dispersal
limitation. Data used to parametrize these simulations, along with the
code used for simulations and data analysis, is also provided here.