Competition for Space and the Structure of Ecological Communities

Book excerpt: This volume is an investigation of interspecific competition for space, particularly among sessile organisms, both plant and animal, and its consequences for community structure. While my own contribu tion ----and the bulk of this volume --- lies in mathematical analysis of the phenomenon, I have also tried to summarize the most important natural historical aspects of these communities, and have devoted much effort to relating the mathematical results to observations of the natural world. Thus, the volume has both a synthetic and an analytic aspect. On the one hand, I have been struck by certain similarities among many communities, from forests to mussel beds, in which spatial com petition is important. On the other hand, I have analyzed this pheno menon by means of reaction-dispersal models. Finally, the mathematical analysis has suggested a conceptual framework for these communities which, I believe, further unifies and illuminates the field data. A focal perception of this work is that, just as niche relations provide an appropriate expression of the influence of resource compe tition on community structure, so do dominance relations provide an appropriate expression of the influence of spatial competition.