Greater local diversity under older species pools may arise from enhanced competitive equivalence

Local ecological communities in geologically older regions tend to contain more species, a pattern normally attributed to the accumulation of species in the regional species pool over evolutionary time. In this study we used plant-fungal microcosms to test the hypothesis that older regions to have higher local richness not simply because older species pools are more speciose, but also because the constituent species have evolved traits that allow them to co-occur more readily in local communities.

地质年代更古老的区域中的本地生态群落通常拥有更多物种，这一规律通常被归因于演化时间尺度下区域物种种库的物种积累过程。本研究采用植物-真菌微宇宙（plant-fungal microcosms）实验体系，对下述假说开展验证：古老区域拥有更高的本地物种丰富度，不仅是因为古老区域的物种种库物种更为丰富，还因为其组成物种已演化出可在本地群落中更易共存的功能性状。