The spatial configuration of biotic interactions shapes coexistence-area relationships in an annual plant community

Abstract

The increase of species richness with area is a universal phenomenon on Earth. However, this observation contrasts with our poor understanding of how these species-area relationships (SARs) emerge from the collective effects of area, spatial heterogeneity, and local interactions. By combining a structuralist approach with five years of empirical observations in a highly-diverse Mediterranean grassland, we show that spatial heterogeneity plays a little role in the accumulation of species richness with area in our system. Instead, as we increase the sampled area more species combinations are realized, and they coexist mainly due to direct pairwise interactions rather than by changes in single-species dominance or by indirect interactions. We also identify a small set of transient species with small population sizes that are consistently found across spatial scales. These findings empirically support the importance of the architecture of species interactions together with stochastic events for driving coexistence- and species-area relationships.

Local patterns of species coexistence across scales could determine the shape of species-area relationships. Here the authors apply a structuralist approach to empirical data on annual plant communities to assess how species interactions shape coexistence- and species-area relationships.