Resource competition among plants: from maximizing individuals to community structure

Evidence indicates that natural systems worldwide are threatened by increasing economic activity, suggesting a need for improved understanding of how ecosystems and economies interact. The model of plant community structure developed here is designed to be both biologically reasonable and adaptable to economic models. The model begins with individual plants maximizing their net intake of light energy in a competitive environment, and the individual’s success determines whether the population of its species increases or decreases. This bridging model yields numerous testable predictions, and it provides a link between individual plant behavior and community structure. The driving force behind the dynamics of community structure is resource competition in which individual plants respond to a ‘price’ they pay when accessing light, while simultaneously the collective responses of all plants determine the price. Competition for light is well defined and determined by the value of the price. The parameters in the maximization problem that are species dependent determine what species can coexist. Water is added as another resource in the plant’s maximization problem, which forces the plant to optimally allocate photosynthate to roots versus shoots. The maximization framework permits relatively easy integration with economic models. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

[1]  N. Georgescu-Roegen.  1970) The Entropy Law and the Economic Problem , 1976 .

[2]  K. Yamamura.  Optimality in the spatial leaf distribution of the weed Portulaca oleracea L. , 1997 .

[3]  Thomas M. Smith,et al.  Plant Succession: Life History and Competition , 1987, The American Naturalist.

[4]  J. Tschirhart,et al.  Ecosystems, externalities, and economies , 1992, Environmental and Resource Economics.

[5]  Michael P. Wells,et al.  Biodiversity Loss: Economic and Ecological Issues , 2004, Biodiversity & Conservation.

[6]  J. Ehleringer,et al.  Solar tracking by plants. , 1980, Science.

[7]  A. Galston.  Fundamentals of Ecology , 1972, The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.

[8]  Mark Westoby,et al.  The Place of the Self-Thinning Rule in Population Dynamics , 1981, The American Naturalist.

[9]  C. S. Holling,et al.  Economic growth, carrying capacity, and the environment , 1995, Environment and Development Economics.

[10]  William M. Schaffer,et al.  Plant strategies and the dynamics and structure of plant communities , 1989 .

[11]  J. P. Grime.  Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function: The Debate Deepens , 1997, Science.

[12]  Henry C. Cowles,et al.  The Ecological Relations of the Vegetation on the Sand Dunes of Lake Michigan [Continued] , 1899, Botanical Gazette.

[13]  C. S. Holling,et al.  Biodiversity conservation: problems and policies. Papers from the Biodiversity Programme, Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. , 1995 .

[14]  K. Yoda,et al.  Self-thinning in overcrowded pure stands under cultivated and natural conditions (Intraspecific competition among higher plants. XI) , 1963 .

[15]  D. Tilman,et al.  Plant Allocation and the Multiple Limitation Hypothesis , 1992, The American Naturalist.

[16]  Shade avoidance and shade tolerance in flowering plants. I-I. Effects of light on the germination of species of contrasted ecology , 1975 .

[17]  H. Kroon,et al.  High benefits of clonal integration in two stoloniferous species, in response to heterogeneous light environments , 1994 .

[18]  R. Bainbridge,et al.  LIGHT AS AN ECOLOGICAL FACTOR , 1967 .

[19]  Harvesting in an Eight Species Ecosystem , 2003 .

[20]  B. Hannon.  Marginal product pricing in the ecosystem. , 1976, Journal of theoretical biology.

[21]  David Tilman,et al.  Resources: A Graphical-Mechanistic Approach to Competition and Predation , 1980, The American Naturalist.

[22]  Robert Costanza,et al.  Nature’s Services , 1999 .

[23]  Thomas D. Crocker,et al.  Economic Valuation of Ecosystems , 1987 .

[24]  B. Ellert,et al.  Temperature dependence of net nitrogen and sulfur mineralization , 1992 .

[25]  Feike Schieving,et al.  A model on optimal root–shoot allocation and water transport in clonal plants , 1998 .

[26]  John C. Woodwell,et al.  A simulation model to illustrate feedbacks among resource consumption, production, and factors of production in ecological-economic systems , 1998 .

[27]  Sven Erik Jørgensen,et al.  Exergy as goal function of ecosystems dynamic , 1997 .

[28]  D. Tilman.  Resource competition and community structure. , 1983, Monographs in population biology.

[29]  R. May,et al.  Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems , 1976, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.

[30]  J Tschirhart,et al.  General equilibrium of an ecosystem. , 2000, Journal of theoretical biology.

[31]  D. DeAngelis,et al.  Competition and Coexistence: The Effects of Resource Transport and Supply Rates , 1994, The American Naturalist.

[32]  A. J. Lotka.  Contribution to the Energetics of Evolution. , 1922, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[33]  Shmuel Amir,et al.  Economic interpretations of equilibrium concepts in ecological systems , 1979 .

[34]  F. Raulier,et al.  Influence of shading on the relationship between leaf area and crown surface area in sugar maple stands , 1997 .

[35]  Lawrence B. Slobodkin,et al.  A Critique for Ecology , 1991 .

[36]  G. Asner,et al.  Scaling PAR absorption from the leaf to landscape level in spatially heterogeneous ecosystems , 1997 .

[37]  J. Amthor,et al.  The role of maintenance respiration in plant growth , 1984 .

[38]  D. Tilman.  THE ECOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF CHANGES IN BIODIVERSITY: A SEARCH FOR GENERAL PRINCIPLES101 , 1999 .

[39]  R. Chazdon,et al.  The Importance of Sunflecks for Forest Understory Plants Photosynthetic machinery appears adapted to brief, unpredictable periods of radiation , 1991 .

[40]  J. Grover.  Resource Competition , 1997, Population and Community Biology Series.

[41]  S. Levin.  Community Equilibria and Stability, and an Extension of the Competitive Exclusion Principle , 1970, The American Naturalist.

[42]  Sven Erik Jørgensen,et al.  EXERGY AND ECOLOGICAL BUFFER CAPACITY , 1979 .

[43]  B. Hannon,et al.  The structure of ecosystems. , 1973, Journal of theoretical biology.

[44]  David Tilman,et al.  Limiting Similarity in Mechanistic and Spatial Models of Plant Competition in Heterogeneous Environments , 1994, The American Naturalist.

[45]  T. Schoener.  Mechanistic Approaches to Community Ecology: A New Reductionism , 1986 .

[46]  Tinker,et al.  Killer whale predation on sea otters linking oceanic and nearshore ecosystems , 1998, Science.

[47]  M. Barbour,et al.  Terrestrial Plant Ecology , 1981 .

[48]  G. Barrett,et al.  The Twenty-First Century: The World at Carrying Capacity , 2000 .

[49]  E. Odum.  Fundamentals of ecology , 1972 .

[50]  Harold A. Mooney,et al.  Ecology of Biological Invasions of North America and Hawaii , 1986, Ecological Studies.

[51]  F. Stuart Chapin,et al.  Mechanisms of Primary Succession Following Deglaciation at Glacier Bay, Alaska , 1994 .

[52]  Henry Chandler Cowles,et al.  The Ecological Relations of the Vegetation on the Sand Dunes of Lake Michigan [Continued] , 1899, Botanical Gazette.

[53]  H. Mooney,et al.  The energy balance of leaves of the evergreen desert shrub Atriplex hymenelytra , 1977, Oecologia.

[54]  D. Tilman.  The Resource-Ratio Hypothesis of Plant Succession , 1985, The American Naturalist.